Work on a project that will more than double and upgrade the space Northern Montana Hospital has for Operating Rooms and Intensive Care Units took a significant step forward this month with the first concrete pour at the expansion site.
The project, with Sletten Construction as the primary contractor, officially broke ground March 16, with work beginning the following day. Crews quickly got to work preparing the site, including demolishing the walkway that had connected the hospital to the Family Medical Center, with the foundation pour beginning May 1.
“It’s slow but steady,” Northern Montana Health Care Director of Facility Services Jay Burrington said. “It’s going along. Once we get the footings and stem walls and floors, it goes up fast.”
The addition is located between the southern edge of the hospital and the Family Medical Center. Navarro Construction poured some 38 yards of concrete during the first pour, with Jayco Concrete Pumping using a truck with a 132-foot boom to pump concrete from Havre Ready Mix into the frames built on the Sletten Construction site. The section will house the hospital’s Intensive Care Units once it is complete.
The next phase is south of the hospital and west of and adjacent to the current phase. It will house the new operating rooms once completed. Burrington said the contractors should start that phase in the next few weeks.
Once the new section is completed, the ICU will be moved into that area and work will begin on remodeling the current ICU into a new nurses’ station, recovery rooms, and endoscopy rooms.
The construction project is years in the making, starting under former Northern Montana Health Care CEO and President Dave Henry and NMHC Board President Miles Hamilton, and now coming to fruition under President and CEO Kevin Harada and Board President Rick Stevens.
The project will add 31,000 square feet of new construction to Northern Montana Hospital, which first opened in 1975, and will renovate 18,000 square feet inside the hospital, providing nearly 50,000 square feet of upgraded space.
The upgraded facilities will house state-of-the-art medical equipment, including four robot-assisted operating rooms for the hospital’s two robotic surgery units, with five robotic-surgery-certified surgeons currently on staff to use them. The expansion will also include two endoscopy rooms and an on-site pharmacy.
The project is designed so that no break in service will occur during construction and remodeling.