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St. James Plans $1.4 MillionExpansion; No Fund DriveBy SUZANNE ANDERSON Leader Staff ReporterA physical therapy department, new X-ray and laboratory facilities, and 32 additional beds are included in a $1.4 million expansion program planned by St. James Hospital.The 26,474 square foot addition with a separate heating plant will have a basement and two upper floors. It will be located directly east of the present administrative offices toward Fountain Street.The heating plant will be on the southeast corner of the hospital grounds where a parking lot nowstands.Sister Frances Marie, hospital administrator, said St. James had been operating at 95 per cent capacity for the past year, including four months when the occupancy was over 100 per cent. St. James has never turned away a patient but has had them in the halls.The average occupancy of a hospital is from 75 to 82 per cent.Five New Doctors Two years ago, St James had a shortage of patients. But in the last year, four doctors have moved to Pontiac and one to Dwight, increasing the patient load at the hospital.Sister Frances Marie said the present emergency room and X-ray rooms were inadequate to take care of the demand plated on them. And the patient load is expected to increase with the expansion of industry in Pontiac and the opening of Winston Churchill College.The preliminary plans and estimated cost of the new addition were approved by the Governing Board of the Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis of Peoria on July il. The sisters have operated St. James since 1904.The total estimated cost of $1,-383,821 will be paid entirely by the Third Order of St. Francis. However, the hospital has applied for a federal grant to aid in construction costs.No Fund-Raising Drive No public fund-raising drive will be conducted in Pontiac or the surrounding area.The basement of the new addition will contain the new physical therapy department, general storerooms and mechanical equipment rooms. An 8 foot wide tunnel will extend from the addition to the heating plant, which will be built entirely above ground.The physical therapy department, which the hospital doesn’t have now, will be completely equipped with whirlpool baths, exercise bars and other equipment for therapy.Locker rooms for men and women will also be located in the basement.X-ray Department On the first floor, an X-ray department with two new machines, facilities for a third machine, a therapy room, a dark room, dressing and waiting rooms, a filing room, and an office will be fully equipped.The hospital now has one X-ray machine, three registered X-ray technicians, two X-ray assistants, and a clerical worker.A blood bank, general laboratory, office space, and patient lounges will be included in the new laboratory. One medical technologist, three laboratory technicians and a clerical worker are presently employed.Both departments operate on 24-hour service, seven days a week The new emergency area is designed for six patient cubicles with movable partitions. An island in the middle of the emergency area will be stocked with nursing and medical supplies with three rooms on each side of the island.A separate office and waiting room will be included in the emergency area.The hospital is currently working with one small emergency room that is completely inadequate to handle the patient load.A 20 foot wide circular ambu lance drive will lead off FountainStreet to the emergency entrance. 32 Additional BedsBeds for 32 additional patients will be located in 16 double rooms on the second floor. Each room will have air-conditioning, television, private showers or baths, and an intercom system between the nurse and patient.A nurse’s station will be centrally located with utility rooms and a ward conference room for doctors nearby.The new addition will bring the total bed capacity to 9.7.Three major remodeling projects also axe included in the expansion. The original hospital building at the west will be demolished and a staircase built in its place. The old building is now being used for a conference room, housekeeper’s quarters, and storage area.New ElevatorsThe manually operated elevator located near the main lobby will be removed and a new automatic elevator will be installed.An elevator also will be installed in the addition where the administration offices are now with a well for a second elevator built next to it.To comply with the state fire code, an open staircase south of the lobby will be removed. Administration offices will be built there on the first floor, and a nursing station on the second and third floors. A visitors lounge will fill in the stairwell on the fourth floor.Sister Frances Marie said it was safer for the patients and the employes to locate the heating plant away from the building. The underground tunnel will lead to the plant about 25 feet from the hospital’s new east addition.Boilers, a transformer, an emergency generator and the cooling system for air-conditioning will be located in the plant.The new wing will be fully air-conditioned. Facilities for air-conditioning the entire hospital at a later date are in the plans for the heating plant.May Add in FutureThe footing of the addition willLast Addition To Hospital Was in 1954(Continued on page three)The last major addition to St. James Hospital was a five-story addition completed in 1954 at a total cost of $677,862.The original plans called for only a three-story addition but a fundraising drive topped its goal of $150,000 by almost $100,000 so the shell for the fourth and fifth floors was added.The drive for the 1954 addition was started in 1951 when a grant of $125,000 from the estate of Fritz Bolander was donated for a hospital annex.The Pontiae Elks Lodge then spearheaded a fund-raising campaign that raised a total of $228,-855. The Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis of Peoria contributed an additional $324,000 to the building fund.The ground floor of the 1954 addition contained a kitchen, public cafeteria, and a dining room for the sisters.An additional 42 beds were provided in 10 rooms on both the first and second floor. A new elevator and dumb waiter were installed from the ground to the fourth floor.The third and fourth floors of the new addition were completed in 1958 at a cost of $250,000. The Third Order of St. Francis contributed about half of the cost. Community donations, a Ford Foundation grant of $3.1,000, and remaining funds from the 1954 building fund paid for the other half.The third floor became the obstetrics department containing two delivery rooms and a labor room, a nursery, doctor’s room, nurse's station and a three-bed maternity ward.The fourth floor increased the hospital’s surgery facilities. Five surgery rooms, a doctor's room and nurse’s station, anesthesia room and central supply room were included.Laboratory space in another part of the wing expanded because of removal of the surgical department to the new addition.MORE MILK—Rigged up in what looks like a bovine gas mask and k pating in a Department, of Agriculture experiment on counteracting production. Scientists at the experimental station at Beltsvillc, Md. temperature and humidity cause the production drop and can be eoi quality, providing dry lot feeding, shade and cool water and facilities Scientist Albert Guidrv makes notes from a machine monitoring a hlt;
Newspaper Details
Pontiac Daily Leader
Pontiac, Illinois, US
Tue, Jul 19, 1966
Page 7
Full Page
Clipped by
Allison C.
USA 22 May 2025
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