St. Francis CEO Robert L. Savage.
Trauma is not a comforting subject to contemplate, but it can be comforting to know there is a trauma center nearby. Now, residents of the Hudson Valley have a larger and improved regional trauma center.
St. Francis Hospital in Pougkeepsie on June 15 held a ribbon cutting for the final phase of its $10 million expansion and renovation of its Emergency and Trauma Services Center, the only such facility between Rockland County and Albany.
Saint Francis Hospital is already home to the area”™s sole Level II Trauma Center that provides lifesaving care to severely injured patients. The hospital”™s facilities include a heliport and two trauma bays, with full time board-certified trauma surgeons on staff who are complemented by orthopedic and reconstructive/aesthetic surgeons and neurologists. Over 9,000 trauma victims are cared for annually, making George T. Whalen Family Trauma Center the busiest Level II Trauma Center in New York state
The new facility now has room to do an even better job, said Robert L. Savage, president and CEO of St. Francis Health and Hospital Centers. “The most important thing this is a facility that supports the patient, the family and the staff,” said Savage, adding that the additional “large and well-equipped rooms” in the expanded facility make for better medicine.
This is the second half of an expansion from an 8,000-square-foot space. Phase 1 expansion was completed and occupied last year, this final phase brings the total to 21,586 square feet. The $10 million improvements provide three additional trauma bays set up like operating rooms, a four-bed Prompt Care Unit for treating minor injuries, 11 additional private rooms bringing the total to 27 and a separate children’s care room along with special pediatric medical equipment.
There is an external decontamination area and improved isolation rooms. A second waiting room has been added, as well.
Savage said that ordinary hospital emergency rooms can give good care for normal accidents or sudden illnesses, many of which have warning signs that patients and doctors can use in maintaining health. “The difference with a trauma situation is virtually in a split second an otherwise healthy person needs a trauma center.”
He said that the specialized surgeon is summoned while the ambulance is en route “And a whole team is assembled to take care of the problem. The key to treating trauma is immediately being able to evaluate. It doesn”™t take special equipment, it takes people with special training.”
At St Francis, he said, “Trauma is really a specialty, with the staff and facility having met all the requirements” to be certified as a level II trauma center.
Although the hospital has never had to invoke it, he said, there is a special code, “Code Bus,” that Savage said, would be invoked in the event of a mass injury accident or event. He said the hospital”™s larger facilities would enable it to cope with such a situation much more effectively than it would have done in the previous facilities.
