It is here! The new ER room at Page Hospital is finished and will be in service tomorrow morning.
As the Lake Powell area has continued to grow Page Hospital ER has seen a 6% to 7% increase in visitors every year. Health care and real estate growth go hand in hand. One of the main factors been behind the real estate boom in St. George, Utah the last 20 or so years, has been the availability of superb health care. While Page will not have a ICU, the new ER will have the top of the line equipment.
Page Hospital has a long and interesting history. One of my favorite things to do is walk down the hall of photos at the hospital and look at the staff and facilities from when it first opened during the construction of the dam. Those folks were the pioneers of the 50’s and 60’s, most going to Page from a city. Page, a construction camp at the time, was the most desolate place in the lower 48 with the roads to it not even paved till the early 60’s.
Today Page Hospital has 24 beds and tomorrow it will have a new 10,000 square foot emergency room to serve the people and visitors of Northern Arizona and the border towns in Southern Utah.
In a ceremony last Thursday, Dr Elizabeth Faulk made reference to the hands that helped build the new ER.
“The hands that cut the stone over there and put it together into a wall, the hands that mixed the concrete and did all the sheetrock, put down the tiles — it’s those hands that built this and made it grow,” she said. “Now, it’s the people in there with their hands that are going to take care of those folks and bring something special to this place.”
I found that interesting as my son was one of the hands mixing concrete and laying tile in this new facility.
The new addition is also shaped like a nautilus, which is a circular, concentric, crustacean. The patient rooms will be in a circle around the center of the staff and care providers. The Grand Staircase Escalante Visitor’s Center in Big Water utilized this shape as well.
Pictures to come.
