WVU Medicine Plans to Construct Women and Children's Tower

WVU Medicine announced today (Thursday) plans to construct at 10-story tower dedicated to women and children’s services.

The 152 million dollar project will take about three years to complete, but will add 150 beds to Ruby Memorial Hospital.

Phil Saul is the Executive Vice President for hospital and children’s health at WVU Medicine.

“Basically over the last two years we’ve been filling a lot of gaps in our subspecialty services, which meant we didn’t have the capacity to see as many patients from around the state who needed us because there’s a shortage of pediatric specialists in the state.”

Because of that, he says, the hospital is over 85 percent full on a daily basis.

The new facility will help bridge that capacity gap. It will also provide private rooms and self-contained services such as operating rooms and a radiology suite.

“There’s really nowhere in the state that has a complete range of pediatric specialty care including cardiac surgery, every kind of cancer, a level two trauma service and we’ll be pairing that with a new emergency room.”

Regionally, he says, it will bring the facility up to par with children’s hospitals in Pittsburgh, Columbus, Cincinnati and Washington. 

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, with support from the Marshall Health, Charleston Area Medical Center and WVU Medicine.