Sunnyside Hospital Set for Expansion

By Elena Olmstead, Tri-City Herald, Kennewick, Wash.

Jan. 8–SUNNYSIDE — Sunnyside Community Hospital is starting the new year with $100,000 to help pay for expansion of emergency room facilities.

The payment is part of a $200,000 grant from the Murdock Charitable Trust, which was created in 1975 by the late Jack Murdock, co-founder of Tektronix Inc.

Bill Flower with the hospital’s foundation group said the grant required the foundation to raise $200,000 before it would award the first half of the grant. And Flower said the foundation already has raised $160,000 of the $200,000 it needs to earn the second half.

“We’re very encouraged with the community support,” Flower said.

The foundation is working to raise a total of $3 million for expansion of the hospital’s emergency facilities. The project will include creation of a separate urgent care facility to handle patients who come to the emergency room for primary care.

Flower said the largest initial donation came from the foundation board. He said when the last hospital expansion project was completed several years ago, the foundation found itself with $900,000 left over.

He said the group invested that sum and watched the money grow to $1.2 million, which was then donated to the current project.

The money will help pay to nearly double the size of the hospital’s emergency area, which sees between 1,400 to 1,600 patients a month.

Tom Lathen, hospital spokesman, said work on the expansion — which started in late October — is on schedule and set to be completed in the fall.

He said 16 tons of cement was poured recently to create the outline of the foundation

The plan calls for the new section of the emergency wing to be completed in May, which will allow the hospital to move its emergency room into the new area and begin renovating the old section.

The urgent care wing of the emergency room will include six exam rooms and two triage rooms. The new emergency facility also will include an ambulance bay closer to the hospital’s main entrance, a trauma center, two major treatment rooms, two trauma rooms and one obstetrics room.

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Copyright (c) 2007, Tri-City Herald, Kennewick, Wash.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.

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