Melinda Stephenson, Kingwood Medical Center's Chief Executive Officer, in foreground, makes her welcome remarks during the "Sign the Steel" event held to celebrate the beginning of the hospital's new expansion project. Photo by Jerry Baker
By MIKE MORRIS
Chronicle correspondent
When Dr. Edward Baptista came to Kingwood Medical Center in 2003 after training at the medical center downtown, he was wary of his new workplace, set in the bones of a shopping mall.
But speaking at a Jan. 21 kickoff celebration for what will be the facility’s second expansion in three years, he assured the crowd his doubts are gone.
“I’m no longer at that stage where I was in 2003 where I said, ‘What is this?’ said Baptista, now the hospital’s chief of staff. “Now I tell people this is a great place to go. The secret is out: Kingwood is the place to be.”
The center, on U.S. 59 south of Kingwood Drive, is beginning a $25.5 million expansion that will add two floors, 56 new private beds and an estimated 225 new jobs.
The renovations will add 40 percent to the hospital in-patient capacity, said CEO Melinda Stephenson. The new beds, bringing the total to 267, should prevent patients waiting in the emergency room until rooms are free, she said.
“If Kingwood and the surrounding area weren’t growing so fast, we probably wouldn’t be so willing to do it,” Stephenson said. “But with the growth we’re seeing and the physicians’ loyalty, like Dr. Baptista said, this is really where they want to work, and we’re just going to keep on building.”
The architects were due back within days, she said, to begin planning the next expansion.
Community member Nancy Shortsleeve, chairwoman of the hospital’s board of trustees, said it was once hard to imagine the clinic filling the defunct shopping mall. Now it’s hard to imagine the community without the facility, she said.
“There was a day when the only place anybody would think about going for anything other than minor care was the medical center downtown,” she said. “Today, the technology has been brought to this community.”