East Morgan County Hospital addition progressing

People visited a new section of East Morgan County Hospital, which has the walls up now. The project is scheduled to finish in December. (Dan Barker/ Fort Morgan Times)

Patients at East Morgan County Hospital and their families will have much more space in their rooms after an addition is completed.

The new wing will add almost 50 percent to the size of EMCH with an extra 32,000 square feet and much of that space will go into patient rooms, said CEO Linda Thorpe during a tour of the most recent stage of the work.

"It's an exciting time for us," Thorpe said.

It has gotten to the "dry wall walk through" stage, when walls are up and people can get a sense of the layout of rooms, nursing stations and other aspects of the new facilities, she said. The public was invited to see the progress on the $20 million addition.

Banner Health chipped in $9.5 million for the project, and The EMCH District paid the rest. This project has been in planning for the past three to five years, Thorpe said.

The project adds 19 single-patient rooms, a brand-new kitchen and dining facility, and a new lobby and waiting area. Also, the hospital will gain more than 100 parking spaces, she said.

Patient rooms will have all the state-of-the-art technology for care, plus spacious bathrooms and closets to keep possessions. Each patient room will have an added 80 square feet of room, which offers more place for family and friends to visit. They will include couches for visitors to use.

Rooms will also have large windows to let the sunlight in.

The current facility has patient rooms built in 1967, and are much smaller, but as health care changes and adopts more technology, rooms need to be different today.

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East Morgan County Hospital addition progressing