SCRANTON -- Some major changes are planned for a hospital in Scranton.
Only months after affiliating with our area's largest healthcare company, Geisinger plans to spend $126 million for major renovations at Community Medical Center.
At the beginning of this year, Geisinger Health System merged with Community Medical Center in Scranton. Then, officials with Geisinger promised to pour money into the hospital.
Thursday, officials announced more than $80 million dollars in renovations, and a $26 million building project.
It was a promise kept by health care giant Geisinger. When the health care system picked up Community Medical Center, officials said there would be changes for the better at this hospital in Scranton.
We now know Geisinger plans to spend over $100 million on CMC over the next few years. The look of the hospital will change, but doctors said the biggest improvements will be to the quality of care.
"The local community can feel comfortable that they don’t have to leave Scranton to go to Philadelphia, to go to the Lehigh Valley, they’ll have state of the art operating rooms, intensive care suites, so our good physicians and good surgeons can care for them here as well as anywhere else," said Dr. Anthony Aquilina, CMC Chief Medical Officer.
Geisinger Community Medical Center is the only hospital in Lackawanna County with a trauma care center. Officials said Geisinger’s project is aimed to bring technology for trauma patients you’d only in find in bigger cities.
Over the next few years, more that 100,000 square feet will be added to the CMC campus on Mulberry Street. Plus, some of the money will be used to build a new primary care office at the Mount Pleasant Corporate Center near Scranton High.
Geisinger CMC is one of three hospitals in Scranton, all of which have been taken over by large health systems in the last year. Local patients said though there have been a lot of changes lately, the changes are good.
"Because everything is state of the art, or will be hopefully, everything will be improved and hopefully it will all turn out good," said Linda Ross of Nicholson.
"You’re getting better care, the others are closing and this one is much better. I had no complaints about this hospital before so it will be much better," said Ralph Montaro of Dunmore.
CMC officials said much of the campus on Mulberry Street hasn’t been renovated since the 1960s. Construction there will start later on this year, and the new primary care office is set to be complete in 2014.