Franklin County Medical Center cuts the ribbon on a new facility

PRESTON — In order to meet increasing demand from its population, Franklin County Medical Center (FCMC) recently finished construction on a new facility. Richard Westerberg, FCMC Board Chairman, cut the ribbon on April 27 to commemorate its completion.

The new critical access hospital had been completed substantially by the first of January, and has been operating since then. This ribbon cutting officially commemorates the opening of FCMC.

The dedication was offered by Brandon Wolff, State Controller, who said, “Today we celebrate the opening of this medical office building that will house primary and special providers under one roof and increase access for patients, collaboration between providers and continued improvements to service in the community.”

FCMC is a county-owned critical access hospital, which are hospitals that provide healthcare to rural communities that often don’t have the same access to healthcare as urban areas.

In Franklin County, the two closest regional hospitals are Logan Regional Hospital, which is a little over a half an hour drive, and Portneuf Medical Center, which is an hour-long drive.

“Imagine if you needed to deliver a baby and you were 30 to 40 minutes away,” said Hospital CEO Darin Dransfield, who ran the ribbon cutting ceremony. “The hardship that presents for a family is just tremendous.”

Wolff, whose parents and siblings were all born in Franklin County, reminisced about getting his tonsils taken out at FCMC in June of 1977.

Wolff also pointed out that FCMC has humble beginnings since its start in 1929 with four rooms in the back of a local pharmacy, “and now we have this state of the art twenty bed critical access hospital with an adjoining 35 bed nursing facility.”

The new 24,000 square foot FCMC facility has 20 beds in addition to the those in the nursing facility. It offers a 24-hour emergency department, labor and delivery, sports medicine, cardiology, pediatrics, speech therapy and more.

Opening this new facility has taken at least five years of planning, Dransfield said. He told EastIdahoNews.com that FCMC had outgrown it’s previous medical office building.

“For us to grow with the needs of the community and recruit more physicians, we recognized we needed to have a building that would accommodate not only the current number of providers but future providers we wanted to bring in,” Dransfield said.

Dransfield said that they studied several medical office buildings throughout Southeast Idaho to get inspiration for the new hospital’s design. There is a large room that hasn’t been completed yet, but Dransfield considered that a blessing because they can decide at a later date what to use the space for.

FCMC will continue to transport people to a regional hospital for things like trauma that they can’t treat in their facility, but this new building expands the access people in Franklin county have to medical care in their community.

“Congratulations on this great addition to the community, and we all look forward to a bright future for healthcare here in Franklin County,” Wolff said.