New Quincy Valley Medical Center opens

QUINCY — It’s the same with every move; there are always those last few things that have to wait until the last minute. The portable x-ray machine is a perfect example – it was one of the last pieces of equipment to leave the old Quincy Valley Medical Center.  

The old QVMC was open until 6:59 a.m. Wednesday, and the hospital staff was using the last few minutes to ensure everything was ready when the new QVMC opened its doors at 7 a.m. 

“We open in three minutes,” said Director of Nursing Danielle Hodge as the staff set up at the new nurse’s station.  

Chief Executive Officer Glenda Bishop and Kayla Van Lieshout of the Klosh Group were pulling up the last pieces of cardboard protecting the floors in the new hospital’s entryway, Sageview Clinic and the wound care department. Not all hospital departments were open to patients at 7 a.m.; some started treating patients later on Wednesday, while others will open later in the week.  

Project manager Joe Kunkel said furniture and equipment have been steadily moving into the new space over the last few days.

“That old hospital is starting to look empty,” he said.  

Hospital staff were already at work in the new building, even before its official opening. Karen Pearl, of the housekeeping staff, was busy in the new physical therapy department.  

The hospital has offered PT services, but the old QVMC was too small to provide them at the hospital. The physical therapy department was in a storefront in downtown Quincy, a building that Pearl remembered as a menswear shop when her family moved to town in 1967.  

The new building prompted a little nostalgia – hospital commissioner Anthony Gonzalez snapped a picture of the old hospital nurse’s station – and reminiscing about the old building’s role in the community. Pearl said she’s had conversations with people remembering the days when QVMC offered obstetrics, and the generations of children born at the hospital. The meeting room in the old QVMC served as the dining room when the hospital offered an extended care facility, and at the April commission meeting, Bishop remembered playing piano for the residents. 

The new hospital was funded through a bond approved by hospital district voters, and Wednesday morning, Bishop remembered that she got the news of its passage from a neighbor across the street. District voters tasked QVMC management with building a new hospital, she said, and she was conscious of the responsibility. 

“Now we get to work,” she said.  

The new facility is open, but the project isn’t quite finished. The old hospital will be demolished to make room for the new hospital parking lot. Kunkel said some of the existing hospital furnishings and equipment will be sold at auction next week. Demolition starts in early June, Kunkel said, with the first step being remediation of any hazardous materials found in the building. The new parking lot should be finished by August. 

The new hospital officially opened when the covers that had been placed over the signs were removed. But the signs had been up a while and over time, the tarps got a little weather-beaten. Communications Director Shannon Durfee studied them and was concerned that one of them looked a little dirty. Bishop studied it too. 

“I might go get a bucket later on,” Bishop said. 

    Quincy Valley Medical Center employees Vanessa Diaz, right, and Radiology Department Manager Veronica Cruz, left, move the portable X-ray machine and other equipment into the new QVMC.
  

    Quincy hospital staff set up at the new nurse’s station.
  

    Karen Pearl gives the new physical therapy department at QVMC its first cleaning.
  

    Glenda Bishop, right, QVMC chief executive officer, helps remove the last pieces of cardboard covering the new hospital entry.
  

    Shane Urwin, left, staffer at QVMC, and Project Manager Joe Kunkel move a stretcher into the new hospital.