When Clovis Community Hospital was built in 1988, it stood by itself with nothing around it. In the early years, it struggled until it began to focus on women's health and delivering babies.
Now thousands of patients find routine health care, surgery and baby delivery. CEO Craig Castro explained that some areas are simply just too small. "Our emergency rooms sees about 35,000 people a year. That's about 100 a day and it's built to see about 40 a day."
From the top of what will be a new five-story tower of hospital rooms, you can see growth for miles. The interior is state of the art with some rooms offering a second space for family -- and this is just one of numerous projects underway at the hospital.
"When this is all complete we'll be consuming 43 of the 130 acres with plenty of space for medical office and so on," said Castro.
Castro said the staff and medical community offered input on how to arrange and organize the modern interiors from top to bottom. The majority of workers and subcontractors doing the job are local -- keeping people employed in this continuing recession.
The building costs for the tower and the other on-going construction is being met with bonds and private donations. Castro adds, when it is complete the results will serve this corner of Fresno County for at least 15-years. "This is gonna allow us to provide better care above and beyond what we've done in the past."
The $300-million expansion will be completed in the Fall of 2013. When it opens, patients will find more than 200 private rooms.
