photo by: Josie Burkhart

Trinity Health System St. Clairsville Hospital President Dwayne Richardson shows the surgery prep room at the new facility, which is set to open in July.

The Trinity Health System St. Clairsville Hospital is still on track to open in July, providing the local community with not only basic care, but emergency care as well.

Dwayne Richardson, president of the hospital, toured the new facility along with others Wednesday. It is in its final stages of construction and expected to be ready to open by the targeted date of July 21. Still, Richardson said he is always evaluating the “what ifs?”

The hospital will be a 20,000-square-foot acute care service facility with two stories and 10 emergency rooms, two of which will be trauma rooms along with three fast track rooms on the second floor, six inpatient rooms including one intensive care room and two operating rooms. Other departments will also be in the hospital, ranging from laboratory services to high-end imaging services.

It will also have a room geared toward bariatric patients and another room dedicated to behavioral health patients within an emergency room.

It will provide basic hospital facility services, but also emergency care, which can be difficult to receive right now in the St. Clairsville area, according to Richardson. Patients typically have to cross the Ohio River to obtain it, so providing access on National Road in St. Clairsville will give more people access to health care quickly.

The gap the new facility will help fill was created when East Ohio Regional Hospital in Martins Ferry closed in March, leaving WVU Medicine Wheeling Hospital in Wheeling as the closest care facility for many St. Clairsville area residents. WVU Medicine Barnesville Hospital continues to serve patients in western Belmont County.

The new St. Clairsville hospital will have a helicopter landing zone adjacent to the ambulance bay.

There will also be robots throughout the hospital, providing telemedicine services.

The closure of East Ohio Regional Hospital brought a lot of uncertainty, Richardson said. As a result, the volume of patients at the new St. Clairsville facility is anticipated to increase beyond projections that were available when construction began, so it may have to adjust from a staffing point. Richardson added that Trinity Health System can’t make the hospital bigger, but it can be ready to adjust accordingly to meet patients’ needs.

Richardson said there is a need in the community of St. Clairsville for a local hospital facility.

“Through a community health needs assessment, we determined that there was additional medical care that was needed down here,” Richardson said. “However, we also determined then that a facility was needed to support those other sites. … We’re just happy to be here, and we’re happy that we can bless this community, and we’re happy that our biggest thing is serving the community.”