Bayhealth unveils new hospital
Bayhealth has unveiled its new crown jewel: a $314 million Sussex County hospital campus off Route 1 in Milford.
The new 440,000-square-foot hospital hosted a private open house Jan. 18 for media and elected officials, and a public open house Jan. 19 to show the facility prior to its opening in February.
The hospital will have 128 beds in total. Rooms were all designed with extended stays in mind. Each one has a television, a walk-in bathroom and a table for two that has a fold-down pad to help convert into a guest bed. Also included are a rehabilitation gym, six operating room plus an OR for robotic surgery, a trauma center and a 30-bay emergency room.
Bayhealth President and CEO Terry Murphy said the facility was designed to give patients privacy and use as much natural light as possible, which he said has proven to be therapeutic for patients.
Murphy said Bayhealth’s goal was to build the hospital using 50 percent of the materials from Delaware companies and 50 percent of the labor from Delaware. In the end, he said, 52 percent of the materials were from Delaware companies, and 53 percent of the construction team was from Delaware.
Murphy said Milford Memorial Hospital, Bayhealth’s current facility in downtown Milford, will be turned over to Nationwide Healthcare Services to become a nursing facility and senior wellness village.
He said adjacent to the new Bayhealth hospital will be a Nemours office building, which will also have primary care physicians. This building will break ground in the spring. “Our pride is taking care of people who come to us,” Murphy said. “We’re very proud of bringing the care to the community. We are a community asset.”
Bayhealth Board of Directors Chairman I.G. Burton said, “In 2014, this was an empty field. And today, we’re standing in a finished facility. Bayhealth had a vision. We saw this as a perfect location for a community hospital to serve a rapidly growing Sussex County. It just worked.”
Congresswoman Lisa Blunt Rochester said, “To be able to have state-of-the-art care in a facility that is driven by the people is a real positive. “People were actually attracted to Delaware with the potential to work with such a great organization. I’m excited.”
Rochester said the hospital will not only help with quality of life, but with jobs. “It will have ripple impact on other vendors, on other stores, housing. It will have a greater impact than just as a stand-alone facility,” she said.
Gov. John Carney said, “They did it right. They really fought through how to build this thing, how to arrange it and how to provide really quality healthcare. It’s an incredible facility. Going forward, it’s going to be an asset that will help us attract businesses and employees here. It’s a big deal for this part of our state.”
