Good Sam Celebrates New Expansion With the Public - KHGI-TV/KWNB-TV/KHGI-CD-Grand Island, Kearney, Hastings

Good Sam Celebrates New Expansion With the Public

Kearney- Wednesday will mark the first of two events inviting the community to tour the Good Samaritan Hospital Expansion Project and Ron and Carol Cope Heart Center.

The building will be dedicated with a ribbon cutting and prayer service at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday.

The public is invited to gather outside the West Tower Entrance by the new statue of the Good Samaritan located just off Second Avenue on 32^nd Street. After the ribbon is cut, attendees will process into the new dining room for the dedication led by the Most Reverend William J. Dendinger, bishop of the Grand Island Diocese.

Tours of the expansion project will follow.

On Saturday from noon to 6 p.m., Good Samaritan is inviting the public to attend a grand opening celebration at the hospital where tours will be given all day.

"It's a chance for the public to peek into hospital spaces that you usually don't get to see," said Marsha Wilkerson, director of marketing and communications.

"You will look inside a cardiac catheterization lab and walk into operating rooms that are set up for surgery," said Wilkerson. "The da Vinci robotic surgical equipment will be on display as well. The tours culminate in our state-of-the-art, 11,000-square-foot kitchen."

Outside, the hospital is hosting a free ice cream social, the world's largest inflatable heart and inflatable toys for the kids.

"The inflatable heart is an interactive exhibit that folks can walk through to see all the parts of a heart, from valves and arteries to heart disease and infections, as well as what a heart attack and heart bypass look like. You'll even hear how normal and abnormal heartbeats sound," Wilkerson said.

The event has activities for every member of the family, young and old.

"The kids' inflatables look like fun—there's something for every age from a bouncy house to a giant slide featuring King Kong and a dinosaur, to an obstacle course," said Wilkerson. "The public is also invited to a free ice cream social inside the tent that will be set up on the new parking lot located northeast of the expansion project."

The public is asked to park in the marked parking lots and the Kearney Trolley will provide rides to the West Tower. Good Samaritan would like to reserve the main parking lot for visitors and patients.

Although the West Tower Entrance will be used as part of the grand opening festivities, it won't officially open to public until mid-September.

"Over the new few weeks we will sanitize the space and move 10 departments into the new building," Wilkerson said. "After those moves are complete, Good Samaritan will have two entrances. The main lobby can be used by visitors visiting patients in hospital rooms located in the central part of the hospital. The West Tower Entrance will be used by patients who are being admitted for a procedure or surgery, or by visitors going to see someone in the Intensive Care Unit or Progressive Care Units on the second and third floors of the West Tower."

Expansion Project Features

The Good Samaritan Hospital expansion project and home of the Ron and Carol Cope Heart Center includes:

• Nine operating rooms, each measuring 610 square feet.  One future operating room is planned.
• Two cardiac catheterization (cath) labs that are 635 square feet each and a third that is 695 square feet. Space for a fourth cath lab has been set aside to equip in the future as needed.
• Two endoscopy laboratories and an endoscopy procedure room.
• 46 private rooms in the Procedure and Surgical Care Center for patients before and after procedures and surgery.
• Six rooms in the Post Anesthesia Care Unit for patients who will be admitted to the hospital following surgery.
• Exam rooms.
• A bright and airy surgery waiting space.
• A welcoming front lobby with fireplace.
• Staff support spaces including offices, break rooms, surgeons' lounge, physician dressing room and showers, nurses' stations, reading rooms, and more.
• Two-story dining room totaling 3,950 square feet.
• 11,160 square foot kitchen/server.
• Sterile processing department conveniently located under surgery with elevator access.