Improved Service, Lower Cost

As part of the hospital’s multi-million dollar modernization and expansion program, it is scheduled to open in early August.

O’Brien said the new outpatient day operative center will be able to provide orthopedic, plastic surgery, oral surgery, gynecological and ear, nose and throat treatment, among other things. “A whole host of things that used to put people in the hospital for three or four days will now be done on an outpatient basis,” he said.

O’Brien is chairman of the hospital’s day surgical committee set up in 1978 to study the possibility of day operative service. He has been a prime backer of the project, known as “Phase I,” since he helped conceive of it in 1979.

“Phase I” includes the center, expansion and modernization of the emergency room, a relocated and enlarged nuclear medicine department and new waiting, consultation rooms as well as facilities for mentally unstable patients.

The major part of the plan, “Phase II,” involves the construction of a new five-story building to be located as the former Civic property acquired from the town. Another part of the plan involves additional parking.

According to O’Brien, the $1.5 million operative center has several advantages over the current system, which requires that day operative outpatients be processed through the same arrangement as inpatients admitted for several days.

He claims the new center will be psychologically easier on outpatients, by isolating them from the anxiety often caused by watching emergency cases come in the same care area they do and by the noise of such an area. He also said the day center is more cost-effective.

Marjorie Clapprood, communications spokesman for the hospital, said the existence of the day center will free beds in the hospital for the more seriously ill. The hospital currently suffers from a shortage of bed space that frequently necessitates the use of corridor beds for emergency patients.

The new operative center includes two fully equipped operating rooms and three minor operating rooms as well as an endoscopy unit. Currently the center is being used as the emergency center while that area is undergoing renovation and expansion.

O’Brien stressed that the operative center was designed for maximum patient comfort, singling out acoustically designed scrub sinks that reduce splashing noise, specially purchased to keep the area quiet.

David P. Buchmueller, hospital administrator, said no other hospitals in the Boston area have such day surgery facilities at their central location. Having it adjacent to the hospital combines the efficiency of a day center with the medical backup of the hospital’s facilities, he said.

The new center, when completed, will be adjacent to the redesigned emergency room, parts of which are in the same addition. The temporary ambulance receiving area on Winter Street will be closed and a new one opened several yards up the street at the new entrance to the emergency room.

The last major addition to the hospital was the west wing, added in 1962.

Archival Note: This article has been dynamically reconstructed from the original public record print archives of the Patriot Ledger