Officials from Southern Ohio Medical Center and the City of Waverly held a ceremonial ground breaking ceremony Tuesday on a new project that will bring SOMC’s physicians and programs closer to Pike County patients.

“It’s the Southern Ohio Medical Center Waverly Urgent Care and Specialty Center,” said Elvis Walters, RN, the nurse manager of the Center. “We’ll offer urgent care services and also our medical specialists will be rotating through providing specialty care by appointment. We’ll also offer outpatient labs and X-rays. Then we will assess the needs of the community and let that help steer the services we will have in the future. We already had some patients established in Pike County and we just thought this made more sense to provide care closer to home for them.”

Justin Clark, director of plant operations for SOMC, said the facility will be about 16,000-square-feet with room to expand.

“It’s a one-story space that will meet all of our needs,” he said.

“It’s wonderful to see some earth moving,” said Ben Gill, vice president of Support Services. “We’ve been talking about this for so many months, and so finally to see some movement and to just come to the realization that we are going to be, and are excited to be, a member of this community.”

One of those turning a shovel-load of dirt at the site was SOMC President and CEO Randy Arnett.

“We’ve been awfully excited about coming to Waverly for some time,” Arnett said. “We have been very successful in getting a lot of excellent specialists in our area in Portsmouth. And we thought that Pike County, Piketon and Waverly have always been very good to our hospital and our community in past years. We’ve got a good market here in Waverly. And we thought it was time to now bring services closer to Waverly. There are good doctors here in Waverly, and we want to work with the local community, work with the local doctors. We want to be more than just partners with them. We want to be collaborators on people’s care.”

Waverly Mayor Dale Reed joined the lineup of those posing with the silver shovel.

“This is a great day for Waverly, simply because there have been so many adverse things take place here, it’s good to see something positive,” Reed said. “I think SOMC offers a lot to the community, simply because we have a lot of people from the Waverly area that go to SOMC for treatment, and their doctors are located there. We’re just excited that all the people we have talked to from SOMC seem very pleased and happy to be here. “

Clark said the hospital broke ground July 6 and they hope to be open this time next year.

FRANK LEWIS may be reached at (740) 353-3101,

ext. 232, or flewis@heartlandpublications.com.