Saint Francis plans renovations

Business Today

Less than a year after unveiling its new Family Birthplace, Saint Francis Medical Center in Cape Girardeau has decided to tear down the building that houses the center and build its obstetrics and neonatal intensive care units in another part of the hospital.

Officials with the hospital say the decision to tear down the $600,000 center that opened last September isn't a case of poor planning, nor could it have been foreseen.

The unit was simply existing in a part of the hospital -- the Thomas G. Otto Pavilion -- that was creating problems for a portion of its new $48 million expansion project, said Dusty Rhodes, the hospital's vice president of administrative services. The new expansion plans weren't finalized until after the new obstetrics unit was finished, Rhodes said.

Rhodes said he understands that it might be hard for some to understand why things are being changed so soon: "We've been explaining it to our employees, who are asking the same question: 'Why are you tearing down the new unit after you just opened it?'"

Originally, the hospital had intended to build a new outpatient services area around the Otto Pavilion, incorporating the new birth center into an overall new building. But Rhodes said trying to do that was more trouble than it was worth.

When completed next March, the new Family Birthplace will be on the second of two new floors that are being built on top of the hospital's inpatient rehabilitation building. Plans had already called for adding one new floor for orthopedics, the branch of surgery dealing with bone injuries, deformities and disease.

The hospital's overall expansion plans call for a new orthopedics unit, a new outpatient services area, and renovations of the business offices, same-day surgery and portions of the emergency room, as well as enlargement of surgery and relocation and enlargement of radiology, lab and the ICU waiting area.

A $7.5 million fitness center is also planned, but it is not part of the $48 million current expansion plan. All of the plans are expected to be complete by 2007.