Fairfield County, SC (WLTX) - After 10 months of construction, the new Providence Health Emergency Room is set to open in Fairfield County.
On Thursday evening, Providence Health officials and community members gathered for a ribbon cutting and open house. Dozens attended the event.
The new emergency room will help serve the Winnsboro and Fairfield County community, as Fairfield Memorial Hospital is closing its doors.
"It's nice to have a state of the art emergency room here," says Roger Gaddy, MD, mayor of Winnsboro. "It will take the place of the emergency room at the hospital. As we all know, small rural hospitals have come upon hard times and a lot of them are closing around the state, as our in patient department did also."
The new emergency room will provide 24 hour access to care, an in-house laboratory for blood work, as well as two large trauma rooms for patients.
Clinical Director Royelle Clarke, says she's pleased to be able to help people in the Fairfield County community.
"This is a huge benefit for the community," says Clarke. "It is bringing new opportunities and new resources. We have full service X-ray here. I just want to be able to close the gap and be that resource to whatever the community needs."
Several ER staff from Fairfield Memorial were able to move over to the Providence Health site. They are expected to be up and running by Tuesday, December 18th.