Samaritan on-time, on budget

MOSES LAKE — The new Samaritan Hospital is coming along exactly the way projects of that magnitude almost never do. 

“We’re on schedule, and we’re on budget,” Joe Kunkel, project director for the hospital construction, said March 11.  

“We are well underway,” Samaritan Healthcare Director of Communications Gretchen Youngren said. (We’re) about 60% complete and headed toward temporary occupancy toward the end of the year, which is really exciting for our community.” 

Things weren’t always so smooth. Back in 2018, residents of the hospital district approved the money to build a new hospital to replace the building on East Wheeler Road that’s served the community since 1955. But like so many other things, the project was derailed by COVID-19, and when the world opened up again after the pandemic, the costs had skyrocketed, and the original money voted for the hospital was no longer enough. It wasn’t until April 2023 that the hospital was able to get a bond passed to build the new facility. 

Once construction began, however, the project has been straightforward. The outer part of the structure is just about finished, Kunkel said. 

“There’s just a couple of stair towers around the back that need the cladding on them,” Kunkel said.  

There’s a lot more to building a hospital than just the basic structure, Youngren said. 

“They are building it in phases,” she said. “If you walked through the building today, you'd say, 'Wow, the ER is basically complete.' But then you go over to the other end … and there's still things left to be done because of how they designed the building.”

The landscaping is due to begin in a few weeks, Kunkel said, and with Moses Lake’s water challenges, the focus is on efficiency. 

“(In) Moses Lake there’s not a whole bunch of green and you don't want to be irrigating 55 acres,” Kunkel said. “We're trying to be responsible with low water usage. So, we kind of saved the more dense or lush landscaping for right around the building that you actually get to enjoy as a as a visitor, and the outside parts will be more native grasses (with) low water requirements.” 

The hospital is the biggest part of Samaritan Healthcare, but it’s far from the whole thing, Youngren said, and Samaritan is making changes to the entire patient experience. 

“We are investing in training and updates across our campuses, the hospital and our two clinics and our business office,” she said. “It's everything from how are we answering phones to directing folks in what they can expect at the new hospital campus, but also how do we create a pathway for them to go back to their routine primary care when they leave the hospital? We’re looking at that across our entire organization.”

Something that hasn’t been decided is what to do with the existing Samaritan Hospital. The building on Wheeler Road has served the community since 1955, but it’s time to pass it on to another entity, Youngren said. Which agency that will be is still up in the air; Youngren said Samaritan has been in talks with several potential buyers but it’s too early to discuss any specifics. One path Samaritan is exploring includes talking with legislators about a potential behavioral or mental health facility, something she said was frequently cited in a survey of the community Samaritan took last year.  

“The one thing we are committed to is this building will not sit empty and this building will not become an eyesore for the community,” she said. “Our goal and hope is that we can either transition the building to another agency or sell the building.” 

Building a hospital is a huge undertaking, Kunkel said, and seeing it come to fruition on schedule is not something to take for granted. 

“When you get to do one of these projects, you don't realize the thousands of little things you do every day that end up with somebody being taken care of in a bed,” he said. “These projects make you think about all those because you do every one of those little things … (besides) the construction and equipment, we're coordinating with all the IT folks on all the low-voltage and wireless stuff, and all of the nurse call systems and camera systems and holy smokes, there's a reason that hospitals are expensive to build. They're complex buildings.”