The Emergency Department at MercyOne Newton Medical Center has been moved due to the upcoming renovation of the department’s normal first floor area. Patients and visitors can still enter through the department’s normal north entrance, but then need to take elevator #1 to the second floor, where the ER has been temporarily relocated.
The hospital has plans for a $5 million upgrade of the Emergency Department, which was built in 1971 and last renovated in 1994. MercyOne Newton Medical Center Chief Operating Officer Chad Kelley says the emergency department has several design and infrastructure limitations.
“This project will expand the rooms to about double in size, which will allow Newton Fire and EMS and the other county EMS crews to actually get their stretchers inside the rooms. To not have to bring a patient into the hallway to perform a code on them while they are having a heart attack. To have negative pressure inside the department and not have to intubate patients in the ambulance garage for the next pandemic.”
MercyOne Newton Medical Center is the sole emergency care provider in Jasper County, and takes in over 10,000 patient visits annually.
