St. Elizabeth Hospital adding bed counts with new unit
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) – A new medical care wing is open at Mercy Health's main campus in Youngstown
Just a week after opening a new intermediate care wing, there are already 10 more patients at the Saint Elizabeth main campus in Youngstown. Administrators say they started working toward this before the COVID-19 pandemic.
'You don't just come up with beds unless you are going to build a whole new tower, so we had to be strategic,' said St. Elizabeth President Kathy Hanley.
The new wing will involve patients who no longer need acute emergency care, but are not well enough to be in a general medical area.
'The patients that we're seeing are acute, sick, ill patients. A lot of them are coming from the emergency room department or stepdown from our intensive care,' said Cathy Ronci, director of inpatient nursing.
For decades, this space had been leased by Select Specialty Hospital, which moved out last year. After a multi-million dollar remodeling project and purchasing new equipment, Saint E's will now be able to handle up to 60 intermediate patients.
The addition also comes as Insight Trumbull in Warren has closed indefinitely and Sharon Regional Medical Center was shut down for several months but has since reopened.
'So did the need increase? Absolutely, it did, but we were already, thankfully, on that trajectory,' Hanley said.
Administrators say some of the staff from Insight came to St. E's.
'I actually hired three. Two of them are nurses and another one is a unit secretary that has intermediate background,' Ronci said.
As for the future, there are more expansions planned for the hospital's neuro-intensive care unit.
'We have grown so much in our neurosciences, and so there is a need for more of those beds, and we're working towards that, also,' Hanley said.
Sixteen more beds are expected to be added this fall.
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