The White Mountain Regional Medical Center emergency room in Springerville is an active healthcare center. Each year, about 6,800 people visit, which works out to an average of 19 or so patients a day — in a facility that has just five beds.
WMRMC has decided to change that by way of a substantial expansion, slated to be completed in June of next year.
“I think the biggest thing with this project is that we have identified an area that can really benefit our communitity and surrounding communities in St. Johns, Show Low and even patients from New Mexico,” said WMRMC chief operating officer Wesley Babers.
“The consistent growth of southern Apache County has really pushed for the expansion. As a result we are seeing patients in unconventional spaces now.”
By unconventional spaces, Babers means hallways, waiting rooms, and even the operating room.
“It’s just not conducive with our best practice,” Babers said. “It’s really difficult to see patients in that type of environment. It should be noted that any time we care for these patients in unconventional spaces, we enter an activated portion of our crisis standards of care plan and enter into contingency care, which requires us to notify state agencies. We have to utilize more resources and staff. It’s just a less effective way to care for our patients.”
In May, about 12% of WMRMC’s ER patients were treated in those unconventional spaces, and the need for better care was the driving factor in the expansion, which will cost about $11 million.
“This is one of the largest expansions that our facility has ever seen since the build,” Babers said. “We’ve done this just for the community and we’ve identified an area to improve and we are improving. That’s strictly to go with our mission, to empower a healthier community.”
Funds for the expansion will come from a loan and through grant funding from the state.
“The loan itself is for $8 million and we have appropriations of $3 million from Senators Kelly and Sinema,” Babers said. “However, those funds have not been signed into law as of yet. We’ll know later this year whether that $3 million will get appropriated to us. So we’ve taken an amazing step in the right direction to get these funds and the senators did their job. Now, we kind of wait and see what the house and the senate does at this point. That’s pretty significant for us.”
It’s not all just wait-and-see, though. “We are starting to transfer into our temporary emergency room space, which they just renovated,” Babers said. “We have already started this process and since the funds from our loan is complete, we can pull from the loan, we are ready to go. We just had to finish the transfer from our current ER to the temporary space.
“I want our community to know that we truly support them and we want to give them the best care possible.”
WMRMC has 23 doctors that work either as an employee or as a contracted physician, as well as five nurse practitioners. The hospital has 21 patient beds and a variety of services including radiology, laboratory services, outpatient surgery, cardiopulmonary services, a sleep diagnostic center, swing bed rehabilitation, the Jean V. Hall Wellness Center, rehabilitation, physical therapy, occupational therapy.
WMRMC is located on 118 South Mountain Ave. in Springerville. The main line is (928) 333-4368. In an emergency, call 911.