Crittenden County and Baptist Memorial Health Care officials cut the ribbon on the new Baptist Memorial Hospital-Crittenden.
The 65,000-square-foot facility will offer emergency services, inpatient medical-surgical services, inpatient and outpatient diagnostic imaging, two operating rooms, a cancer and chemotherapy infusion center and other services.
The county has been without a hospital since September 2014, when Crittenden Regional Hospital closed. Two years later, Crittenden County residents voted to direct proceeds from an existing one-cent, five-year sales tax to fund the construction of a new hospital. Crittenden County officials chose Baptist to manage the hospital, and construction began in early 2017. The new hospital will officially open next month.
“This is a very special day,” said Brian Welton, CEO and administrator of Baptist Crittenden. “We are so grateful to the people of Crittenden County for supporting this project, and we are so excited to show them their new hospital.”
Most of Baptist Crittenden’s staff has been hired, and 83 percent of the team members live in and around Crittenden County. A significant number worked for the former Crittenden Regional Hospital.
