I was happy when I read about a new hospital being built in our small city.
- This was four years ago when the development project was announced in our local newspaper.
Our existing hospital is outdated plus dilapidated. The staff is mean, the care is terrible, plus they have years of bad reviews on the internet that are simple to find. But when it’s your community’s only hospital for 20 miles, you don’t have a choice when you have an emergency. I’m cheerful that the new hospital is owned by the same company that runs the nice hospital about 25 miles north of here. It’s in our county, but usually you wouldn’t make the drive unless you didn’t have an emergency plus were dead set on getting better care. During the pandemic, the local hospital was overrun plus some patients had to be transferred to the larger hospital up the road. They both struggled with outdated buildings that didn’t have ventilation up to this week’s standards. I l earned that this factor was central to the plans for the new hospital, as they wanted to exceed up-to-date guidelines in the anticipation of another airborne virus in the near or distant future. They also created over 15 isolation rooms that have their own heating plus cooling systems that pull any airborne contaminants from the space plus expel them outdoors. There’s an initial room you enter before opening the door to the room with the patient’s bed. This creates a disadvantage air pressure so air is pulled into the room when you open the door instead of out.