Ground broken for new clinic, rehab center
May 31, 2013
Local dignitaries attended the official groundbreaking ceremony for Hamilton Hospital’s new physical rehabilitation center and clinic on Friday, March 16. Construction will begin in the coming weeks, and Hospital Administrator Mike Huff said he hopes the new facility will be up and running by January 2013.
The center will consist of two buildings located just west of Hamilton Hospital. The new clinic building will utilize most of the old building at the corner of Main and S. Ave. M, with some tweaks.
“They’re going to take most of it down, and leave the frame and floor,” Huff said. “It will be a combination remodeled and new clinic.”
Adjacent to the doctor’s clinic will be a brand new physical rehabilitation center. In all, the two buildings will comprise 17,812 square feet. The clinic building will house all physicians, while the rehab center will be the home of the occupational and physical therapy programs. Huff also said the hospital is hoping to add speech therapy to the list, along with another special perk.
“In addition to that we will put together a community wellness program,” he said, noting that details were still in the works and would be released in the coming months.
Huff said funding for the building was actually secured Friday afternoon, and the construction documents will all be signed this week. Crews will move in equipment next week and then the real work can begin.
“The first thing you’ll see is the heavy equipment going site work,” Huff noted. As for the current clinic building located on Main Street, the administrator said plans are being made for its future as well.
“What we’d like to do is do some remodeling on that and turn it into a specialty clinic,” Huff said. “We want to try to provide all the health care people need lo- cally.”
Work on the project’s initial stages began a while back, and Huff said the drawings for the new building were well on the way when he arrived in Olney six months ago.
Since Huff’s arrival, however, he and the members of the Hamilton Hospital Board of Directors have begun putting a lot of effort into securing financing and getting the project off the ground. The Hamilton Hospital Foundation and residents of Olney also helped by raising approximately $500,000 in a capital campaign to help fund the new facility as well.
“It’s very exciting to see the culmination of everyone’s efforts,” he said. “We want to thank the community for its support of our hospital. It’s a testament to the support from the community. We need them and they need us. All of this has been easier with the community behind us.”