News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Cookeville Regional’s 5 West wing has been completely stripped, another milestone in the 4 West/5 West renovations.
The 5 West wing had been used as a mental health facility, meaning many of the typical patient-room medical facilities had been removed. CEO Buffy Key said the wing was shut down at the start of the pandemic.
“During the pandemic we would have loved to have been able to use that area as an overflow, you know, for COVID patients at such a dire time, but we weren’t able to do that because they were no longer patient-safe rooms as far as for medical gas and things like that,” Key said.
Key said a much-needed dialysis center and fifty more inpatient beds will open once renovations are complete. The new beds will provide more patient capacity, Key said.
“That’ll be huge for us,” Key said. “Adds more capacity for our patients, getting them out of that emergency room and getting them upstairs when they need to be admitted quicker.”
The project began earlier this summer with the removal of everything in the 5 West wing. Key said it should take eighteen months to renovate 5 West. Once that is completed, efforts will shift to the 4 West wing below.
