A ribbon-cutting ceremony followed by an open house was held at Passavant Hospital yesterday evening to celebrate the organization’s new Women’s Health Center.
A number of recognizable faces were in attendance for the ceremony, such as city officials Mayor Andy Ezard, Morgan County Commissioner Ginny Fanning and Jacksonville Chamber President Lisa Musch among others. Despite the new facility having been open for the last several weeks, last night’s ceremony marked the official ribbon-cutting and open house for the entire public to see.
President and CEO of Passavant Area Hospital Harry Schmidt was also on hand for the big event. He says the centers is really an essential element to the basis of the entire hospital here locally.
“ Overall, the Women’s Health Center is an element in the foundation for a community hospital. We’re proud to provide these services, and we’re about to do this now through our partnership with the SIU School of Medicine. So we’ve been able to expand our basic OBGYN services for women’s health. In addition, we’ll be bringing Dr. Abrahams over for the high-risk pregnancies, those services will be offered here one day a week, so those women in the community are able to have those visits as well,” Schmidt says.
While last night’s event served a sort of an introduction of the Women’s Health Center to the community, Schmidt says since its opening several weeks ago, the facility is already bringing in a record number of patients.
“One of the ideas that we’re looking forward to is the increased in the volumes and capacities. The recent data that we’re looking at shows that only about 42 percent of the women are delivering their babies here at Passavant Area Hospital, so we’re looking to increase that number obviously for the babies and for the services that we provide here. We’ve already seen, in the first month that the women’s health center has been open, we’ve had over 900 visits to the center, which is the highest number of visits for OBGYN that we have on record for our Passavant physician associates. So we’re really proud for the fast start.
Passavant Hospital’s new Women’s Health Center is located on the north west side of the building, just north and east of the Emergency Room.