Hospital receives grant to help with expansion

May 31, 2012

 A capital campaign to expand and renovate the emergency department at Johnston Medical Center in Smithfield has received the support of the Golden Leaf Foundation.

 A $100,000 grant will go toward the effort, which is being led by the Johnston Health Foundation and named in honor of Dr. Woodrow Batten, a much-beloved internist who has been on the medical staff since the hospital opened in 1951. "We're delighted to receive the grant," said Lucy Coats, chairperson of the foundation's board of directors. "It's a nice endorsement of a project that will be of great benefit to our patients."

When the emergency department was built in 1998, it was designed to handle 34,000 patient visits a year. But the demand for service through the years has exceeded everyone's expectations, Coats said.

The remodeling project, which is expected to cost $1.5 million, will add four additional treatment rooms, bringing the total to 28, and convert a former lab space into a larger, safer holding area for behavioral health patients.