Dennis Wright, a maintenance mechanic, signs his name on the last piece of steel to be put in the new cardiac unit of the River Region Medical Center Friday, as Charlie Ward waits his turn to print his signature on the beam.(Jon Giffin The Vicksburg Post)

[1/17/04]Painted white and bearing the signatures of many who witnessed it, the final beam of the framework for the first expansion of River Region Medical Center slipped into place in the traditional topping out ceremony.

The ceremony, which dates to many cultures and ancient times, marked a significant milestone in the construction that began in September. The wing should open in early July as a cardiac intensive care unit for the open heart surgery program at River Region. The three-story wing is also the first expansion of the medical facility that opened in February 2002 with more than 200 beds.

Although the new wing will be built with two floors, only the top floor will be finished and put into immediate use, said Kevin Cook, assistant administrator for River Region. That top floor will enclose about 12,000 square feet of space scheduled to open in early July as an eight- to 10-bed cardiac care intensive care unit. The floor can be expanded to 14 beds as the need arises.

“The first floor will be shelled in and we may put one or two things on that floor in the beginning such as space for on-call physicians to spend the night, but even that, right now, is tentative,” Cook said.

The ground level will be available to be finished at some future date, he said.

“This means we can continue to expand the heart program designed to meet the needs of the community,” Cook said.

Since River Region opened in 2002, Dr. Ed Crocker, a cardiovascular and thoracic surgeon has been added to the staff which allows patients in this area to get many life-saving procedures, such as heart bypass surgery, done without having to travel to a medical center out of town.

He said the decision to build the expansion now was driven by the success of the River Region heart program.

“Right now we are averaging around nine heart procedures a month,” he said. “We have also increased the number interventional (catherization laboratory) procedures.”

He said the new wing and the first intensive care room will have a price tag of about $7 million. The actual number of rooms that will open depends on just how much under budget the project runs.

“The more under budget we run, the more rooms we can equip,” Cook said. “Right now we are under budget enough to where we should be able to open with 10 rooms.”

The easternmost part of the new wing has been designed to allow for the addition of three more floors atop those being built.

Phillip Clendenin, chief executive officer of River Region, said it seemed like only yesterday that River Region was opened.

“We are just trying to meet the needs of Vicksburg and the surrounding area,” he said. “We are going to keep on measuring where we are within the community.”

The general contractor is Bovis Construction of Nashville, Cook said, adding the entire team from architects on who built the hospital have returned for the expansion.