Campaign Overview

The Memorial Healthcare Foundation is a 501(c)(3) organization whose purpose is to render service to Memorial Hospital of Lafayette County and its patients, and to assist Memorial Hospital of Lafayette County in promoting the health and welfare of the community in accordance with the objectives established by the hospital.

Quality Care Right Here at Home~
At Memorial Hospital of Lafayette County, we’ve been meeting the needs of our patients for more than half a century. We’ve done such a good job of it that we’re now out of space. With the proposed addition and upgrade to our facility, we will be able to continue offering personalized care to our community. With your support, Memorial Hospital of Lafayette County will always be here for you when you need us most!

This project is comprehensive and will improve many areas: the Emergency Department, Operating Room, Patient Rooms, and Birthing Suites. It will also add a six-bed Renal Dialysis Unit. But the sum of the project’s impact is far greater than those parts would suggest. With this project, Memorial Hospital of Lafayette County will have the space and equipment necessary to provide the care our community deserves.

Emergency Department
MHLC currently has two emergency treatment rooms. They will be replaced with two new trauma rooms. Compared to the emergency rooms, the trauma rooms will be larger and better configured for efficient use of lifesaving equipment.

Activity in the emergency rooms is not restricted to emergency medical procedures. Once doctors’ offices close for the day, the emergency rooms become the only option for medical treatment in the area. The new trauma rooms will make it easier to orchestrate care for these after-hours patients, but will be especially valuable when a serious injury must be treated. In fact, those patients requiring critical care – victims of farm and automobile accidents, cardiac patients and others with similarly urgent needs – will benefit most from the two new rooms.

The two trauma rooms, a procedure room, waiting area, nurses’ station, and decontamination area will provide room for physicians and others to work, space for equipment, and privacy for patients.

Operating Room Area
A large room specifically for the storage of equipment is badly needed. Operating room equipment is now housed in the actual operating room, the recovery room, two hallways outside the OR and a mechanical room. While no new equipment will be brought in, the project will provide space for safe storage of this existing equipment.

Currently, the recovery room is in the area where patients enter for surgery. Once it is moved farther from the OR, the recovery room will provide more privacy and less commotion for those recovering from surgery.

At present there is no actual nurses’ station for the OR, which means there is no single, designated place for forms, schedules, charting, calls and so forth. The nurses’ station included in our project will provide a secure, organized place for those materials and a location for the nursing staff to accomplish their tasks.

The sum will be even better patient care and improved traffic flow.

Medical Surgical Unit
Medical surgical patient rooms will be remodeled so that each has access to private toilet and shower facilities.

It must be stressed that this project is not targeted at solving just today’s problems. It’s also designed in anticipation of future needs, and to prevent problems in future government surveys of the type that plague the Hospital today.

Obstetrics Department
An OB family room and a patient education room will be added to the OB department. More importantly, two labor/delivery/recovery/post partum (LDRP) rooms are included in the project. The addition of these areas, especially the two LDRPs, will significantly improve the experience of mothers, enabling us to provide better care to them and their newborns. The lack of LDRPs is further evidence of our inability to stay current with patient care. These facilities are considered the minimum standard for OB departments these days.

Renal Dialysis Unit
An average of ten patients each day must travel outside our area to receive dialysis treatment. This involves one to two hours, round trip, for not only the patients but also their caregivers, since patients are themselves often too ill to drive. Many of these patients are making these trips several times each week. Our renal dialysis unit will provide state-of-the-art care right here at home.

There are patients in our service area who now use another provider for dialysis as well as for their primary care. Once our unit is available, however, we will be nearer and more convenient than the facilities to which those patients are now traveling. Because of this, patient count for the dialysis unit is expected to average 20 per day, double what it would be were we serving only those patients who use MHLC for their primary care.

The Communities’ Investment in a Healthy Future~
Total cost for this project is expected to be a little over $3 million. At least $750,000 of the funding will come from the campaign. The Campaign resulted from a unanimous vote of the Memorial Healthcare Foundation and received the support of the Hospital Board. The balance will come from conventional financing and the Hospital Building and Renovation Fund.

The value of a facility like Memorial Hospital of Lafayette County is in proportion to your need for its services. When you’re hale and healthy, the Hospital has some value for the peace of mind its presence provides. When you’re injured or ill, the value increases dramatically.

It would be nice if we could instantaneously create a hospital to meet needs as they arise, but we can’t. We must plan for those needs in advance, and create a facility that meets them before they arrive. Besides, the fact is that we are already bumping into our limitations every day. Our ability to provide care is falling behind the needs of our patients right now.

An opportunity to support your local hospital and make this kind of difference in our area doesn’t come along often. Don’t let this one pass you by.