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Morrison Community Hospital unveils $20.5M expansion

MORRISON, Ill. (KWQC) - On Sunday dozens came out to Morrison Community Hospital to get a first look at the newly complete, 80,000 square-foot expansion.

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“At first our thought was just to add a new ER department, but after some financial feasibility studies were conducted we quickly grew to realize that we had lots of other spaces that need enhancement as well,” MCH CEO Pam Pfister said, “We have a new ER, a state of the art OR room, we added eight patient care rooms to the second floor, we have a new laboratory department, we’ve added on billing and medical records departments and we also did some renovations to the radiology and dietary departments.”

While expanding as the COVID-19 pandemic began, Pfister said facilities were created and adjusted to better handle the disease and others like it.

“We did decide to change due to COVID what we did add on to a negative air pressure room for the second floor, along with that comes anteroom and to add onto that we actually decided to do a clean room to our pharmacy,” Pfister said.

One of the biggest additions includes a second, new OR room, one that OR Coordinator Laurie Ernst said compares to the University of Iowa’s.

“The size of this OR when I first saw it, I was flabbergasted,” Ernst said, ”For us, the improvements that they have done with this facility are unbelievable.”

Ernst and Pfister agree the expansion should help attract and retain high-level talent as well.

“Just the expansion alone has created multiple job opportunities, number one,” Ernst said.

“I can tell you our recruitment and retention for staff as well as physicians would not have happened if it wasn’t for this building project,” Pfister said.

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