Women’s Hospital Expansion Opens at St. Francis

October 16, 2013 1688 Views 2013 International Code Council Annual Conference and Public Comment Hearings, 2015 International Energy Conservation Code, Annual International Conference of the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors, Eastern U.S., Forma Construction, McGranahan Architects, Sunset Air

COLUMBUS, Ga. — St. Francis Hospital unveiled its $110 million Women’s Hospital Tuesday in order to provide a consolidated space dedicated to women’s medical services.

Services at the new 400,000-square-foot women’s hospital will include routine checkups, diagnostic breast cancer screenings using advanced technology and state-of-the-art child delivery facilities. The project, which broke ground in 2011, is part of the largest expansion in the hospital’s history and includes a four-story, 189,000-square-foot clinical services building and a five-story, 168,000-square-foot medical office building.

Nearly 6,000 people were invited to celebrate the expansion at a ribbon-cutting ceremony, which was followed by a tour of the facility.

“What thrills me is to see how excited people are about women’s health care,” said Dr. Susan Epley, senior physician with St. Francis OBGYN Associates, in a statement. “Sometimes women’s health care gets on the back of the burner, but it isn’t now. It’s right in the forefront and we are giving women everything.”

St. Francis OBGYN Associates as well as the St. Francis OBGYN Physician Partners and the Elena Diaz-Verson Amos Center for Breast Health will be located in the new women’s hospital. The centralized location will allow women to benefit from numerous services without traveling to several offices for different appointments.

“This really was created by the doctors,” said Robert Granger, president and CEO of St. Francis Hospital, in a statement. “This was something that grew out of the physicians coming to St. Francis and asking us to get involved in women’s care because they were frustrated with the state of women’s care in our community.”

The expansion of the hospital will allow the delivery of babies, which the hospital has not been capable of since 1981. Officials expect that the women’s hospital will deliver between 1,500 to 2,000 babies in its first year of operation. Other features of the expansion include an expanded surgical suite, an operating room, a cardiovascular intensive care unit, a medical intensive care unit and a 324-seat auditorium.

"It’s a major step forward for the community. It’s fundamentally different than anything that we’ve had before," Granger said.