The new expansion will add office space as well as an additional 20 beds.  Fourteen of those beds will be used for in-patient care; the other six will be used for rapid admission.  Regional Hospital CEO Tim Sughrue says the project is largely due to a capacity issue, they were not able to keep up with demand for in-patient beds.  Sughrue says, "It will add a flexibility that we have here too, or not had in terms of adjusting to patient census, and so it really just affords us in the nursing staff and the physicians to provide really better care for patients. It also incorporates some of the latest thinking in terms of patient rooms."  The Emergency wing expansion is expected to be finished by February 14th.

Tessa Thomas