From a distance it appeared to be an anger management exercise. A group of adults in hard hats took turns swinging their mallets at a wall that refused to budge.
But no one was distraught or incensed. The participants were celebrating the expansion of the Emergency Department at St. Luke’s Cornwall Hospital in Newburgh.
The ceremony began at 8 o’clock on Tuesday morning in a downstairs lobby with an overflow crowd. Hospital CEO and President Joan Cusack McGuirk welcomed the guests and attributed the expansion to an $8 million grant that had been secured through the Statewide Health Facility Transformation Program with the help of our state legislators. She cited former Sen. Bill Larkin, who was seated in the front row, and current Sen. James Skoufis, who was up in Albany.
She also acknowledged Bill Kaplan, whom she described as the hospital’s most dedicated supporter. The area being renovated is known as the “Kaplan Family Center for Emergency Medicine.”
The funding for the changes was approved after the hospital combined its Emergency Departments in Cornwall and Newburgh. The expansion will result in
-a 10-bed observation area, where patients can remain for several hours after they’ve been treated
-an enlarged triage area
-a more spacious ambulance bay
-and an on-site MRI, which will allow patients to go for imaging without being transferred out of the area,
The early morning crowd heard that the Emergency Department is seeing 45,000 patients a year and is receiving positive reviews from the people it treats.
After the reception in the lobby, the group headed out to the driveway to watch the dignitaries swat the wall, which included a map of the expansion.
The hospital has scheduled other ceremonies for March 25. There will be a Newburgh brand unveiling and ribbon cutting at 2 p.m., a Cornwall campus rebranding and ribbon splicing at 4 p.m., and a celebration of the Burke facility on the Cornwall campus at 4:30 p.m.
