Update 5:43 Wing Memorial Hospital in Palmer to get new emergency room as part of Baystate Health purchase
SPRINGFIELD - The Massachusetts Public Health Council approved three Baystate Health projects Wednesday: the planned takeover of Wing Memorial Hospital in Palmer, the construction of four new operating rooms at Baystate Franklin Medical Center in Greenfield and the construction of a new pharmacy in as-yet-unfinished shell space at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield.
Wing Memorial
Baystate's takeover of Wing Memorial from UMass Memorial Health Care of Worcester, first announced in December, is now expected to be completed in September 2014, according to a news release.
Wing has 800 employees.
Baystate and Wing have touted the merger as a way to deal with rising health care costs and falling reimbursements, especial falling reimbursements from government health plans including Medicare and Medicaid.
Baystate Franklin
The four new operating rooms are part of a two-story, $25 million expansion, Baystate officials have said. The current operating rooms, built in 1974, will be renovated as a place for endoscopy.
Besides adding capacity in Greenfield, the renovations are expected to help Baystate recruit physicians to Baystate Franklin Medical Center.
Of the $25.5 million cost, $22.9 million is construction work. The rest is for equipment, furnishings etc.
Work is expected to begin in October.
Baystate Medical Center Pharmacy
The new pharmacy will be built in what is now uncompleted shell space in the MassMutual Wing. The $296 million, 40,000-square-foot addition, once called the "hospital of the future," contains the new emergency rooms and a heart and vascular center but also raw space left unfinished for future projects. The pharmacy is the next project.
The pharmacy itself will cost $7 million and construction will also begin in the October.