Take the time to tour the brand new Grand River Medical Center in south Rifle before everyone moves in and tours aren’t allowed. Between now and March 31, when the physicians’ offices open, you and your group could schedule a tour of the new facility. The hospital district is also scheduling a Grand Opening on May 10, complete with a facility tour and door prizes. After the hospital has patients, the sterile hospital environment required will not allow such comprehensive tours. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see how much detail is involved in opening a new hospital.

Kris Swanson, Public Relations Director, took a small group of the Garfield County Human Services Commission on a tour on March 12. It was extremely interesting to observe how much has been completed and how much is left to go. Contact Swanson by e-mailing her at kswanson@grhd. org.

The first assessment of health needs of the growing western Garfield County began three years ago, and construction began on the 63,500-square-foot facility in March 2002.

The designer of the building is a granddaughter of Freida Shaeffer, a local woman who raised her family in Rifle.

Local stone used on the outside of the building was also used extensively on the inside of the building, and gives the medical center a clean, strong feeling. There are plenty of windows for wonderful lighting on the north side of the building.

A Heritage window, taken from the old Presbyterian Church, graces the sunroom. Rifle citizens raised $35,000 in 1986 to refurbish the church’s windows.

In both the acute care area and the outpatient rooms, nurses are situated where they can see directly all beds at all times.

Among the amenities the hospital will provide are an in-house laboratory, an X-ray room, bone density capabilities, a 35-person-capacity community room, a cafeteria to seat 24 plus an adjacent area for dining al fresco, a wellness center, two huge operating rooms, a decontamination room, cardiac trauma area, pediatrics emergency room, an ob/gyn emergency room, a regular trauma room, and an MRI suite.

The staff is excited about moving into the new state-of-the-art hospital that has a self-contained helicopter pad, which has already been cleared with airport security.

Ever-brilliant Debbie Wilde said, “It almost makes you want to get sick!”