The planned new face of St. Mary's Hospital revealed (2024)

DECATUR — The new HSHS St. Mary’s Hospital that will emerge from a facelift costing up to $100 million was unveiled Tuesday: a state-of-the art facility full of the latest medical equipment but offering it to fewer patients.

Building and remodeling work to transform and slim down the campus next to Lake Decatur is already underway and is expected to take three years.

When the bricks and mortar surgery is complete, the hospital will have 30 medical/surgical beds compared to the 88 it used to have. And intensive care beds will be sliced from 14 to six.

And while the number of operating rooms will drop to four from eight, the four new ones that will emerge will be larger and filled with the best technology money can buy. There will also be the addition of two new endoscopy suites, a redesigned post anesthesia care unit and a general redesign and upgrade of clinical and non-clinical spaces.

All those things are coming in as other things have faded away with the axing of the hospital’s in-patient rehabilitation facility, the obstetrics and newborn nursery, pediatrics and inpatient behavioral health services.

What remains will be wrapped up in a new brick skin that will see the familiar face of the hospital fronting the lake transformed: more brick, fewer windows and a big green space buffer between the medical campus and Lake Shore Drive.

The HSHS leadership were keen to stress the positive at a news conference hosted at St. Mary’s to reveal the new-look hospital they are creating. And they wanted to surgically remove growing rumors that HSHS is planning to cut itself out of Decatur’s future.

“The main concern or rumor is that we are going to close St. Mary’s or we’re going to sell St. Mary’s,” said Matt Fry, HSHS Central Market president, addressing an audience that included several city council members.

“And I want to tell you all, unequivocally, that is a false rumor.”

He noted St. Mary’s has been around for the last 145 years and was planning to stick around for just as long. “We are investing $100 million into this institution and we plan to be here at least another 150 years,” he added.

Fry had talked about positioning the hospital for tomorrow, and it’s a future that HSHS believes will have less potential patients in it as it struggles to staunch hemorrhaging costs.

HSHS had previously listed those as amounting to losses of some $62 million since 2018. It has also previously noted that Decatur’s population was atrophying (figures from the U.S. Census peg the drop at 3.65% since the 2020 Census count) while those families who remain experience an unhealthy poverty rate of 19.7%.

Fry didn’t get into the numbers too much in Tuesday’s presentation of the new-look hospital, but did say there were major challenges out there and change was a necessary prescription for dealing with them.

“It has been a challenging 10 years, really 15 years, in health care,” he explained.

“We have seen a lot of market dynamics that have shifted and it has created a situation that is requiring us to shift a little bit as well.”

Damond Boatwright, the HSHS president and CEO, said other hospitals were taking much more radical surgical approaches to slashing costs in a bid to survive.

“It’s no secret that community hospitals today are facing unbelievable challenges and issues — across the nation — and it’s more than just the pandemic that we are coming out of,” he said.

“And while other hospitals are finding opportunities to consolidate and close, for us we’re really looking at making a reinvestment into our future … HSHS is dedicated to preserving St. Mary’s while embracing our legacy and our rich history that we have here together.”

Julie Moore Wolfe, director of philanthropy for St. Mary's, who also happens to be the city mayor, said times change and hospitals have to change with them. She said when St. Mary's was built, patients might stay for a week or two at a time; today, many undergo same-day surgeries and leave within 24 hours.

“So we’re trying to right-size to where this hospital needs to be for the future of this community as we move forward …” she said.

Dale Colee, who runs pharmacy stores in Decatur and is also vice chairman of the St. Mary’s Hospital Board, said he was worried when he first heard of what services the hospital would be losing.

But he said he then learned about how much was being invested and what was being done with it, and his pulse rate relaxed. “...Somebody doesn’t invest $90 to $100 million if they are going to walk out of this community,” he said.

He described Decatur as a healthy town with “momentum” behind it and one that would soon enjoy a modern and upgraded hospital facility.

“We deserve this in Decatur and, as the vice chairman, I am so excited to have this in our community,” he added.