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Life
Baptist Health Makes Investment to Bring Care Closer to Keys Residents
3 min. read
Taking another significant step toward making Baptist Health Fishermen’s Community Hospital a comprehensive location for quality healthcare in the Middle Keys, Baptist Health South Florida broke ground Wednesday on a new medical arts building.
Adjacent to the hospital on land that was once home to Marathon’s public library, the new structure is expected to be ready for move-in before summer 2024. Construction, which will begin immediately, is anticipated to take about a year.
“This groundbreaking is an important milestone,” said Drew Grossman, CEO of Fishermen’s and Baptist Health Mariners Hospital in Tavernier. “Once this building is done, everyone in this area, whether they live here or are visiting, will know exactly where to go for healthcare. It will be a one-stop, all-inclusive medical and wellness campus.”
Glenn Waters, Baptist Health’s new executive vice president and chief operating officer, said plans for the new building are a true testament to the parent organization’s commitment to the communities it serves.
“It’s remarkable to see that, just over a year since the new hospital’s ribbon cutting, we’re already here today breaking ground on the medical arts building,” Mr. Waters said.
Pillar of the Community
Fishermen’s Community Hospital has been caring for the Florida Keys community since 1962. The hospital was closed temporarily when Hurricane Irma caused devastation in 2017, only 10 weeks after Baptist Health acquired the facility. A field hospital was quickly opened to provide uninterrupted care to the community despite extraordinarily difficult conditions.
The field hospital was replaced with a modular facility a year later until a brand-new 37,330-square-foot hospital could be constructed. With the community’s philanthropic support, the new state-of-the-art hospital opened in the summer of 2021.
Even when the new hospital opened its doors, designed to meet the community’s needs well into the future, there was still work to be done. Offices for doctors and new spaces for clinics, outpatient treatment and rehabilitation services were lacking.
Plans for the Future
Plans for the new medical arts building call for a one-story, hurricane-resistant structure of approximately 10,000 square feet, with about half designated for clinical space and the remainder to be used as offices for primary care, cardiology, orthopedic and other specialty practices.
“We're planning to expand more and more of our services with all different types of medical specialists,” Mr. Grossman explained. “People want their care in their own backyard, and they deserve that. We want to continue to provide that quality healthcare to our community without having people drive several hours to receive it.”
The new building will relocate and expand the hospital’s three oncology infusion rooms to five, allowing Middle Keys residents to access chemotherapy treatment more conveniently. As the southernmost branch of Miami Cancer Institute, part of Baptist Health Cancer Care, the hospital began providing infusion services in 2022 and has hundreds of patients.
The new building also will allow the relocation of rehabilitation services closer to the hospital. “They won’t have to do rehab a half a mile down the street, or go to a primary care medical practice a mile down the street,” Mr. Grossman said. “It will all be right here.”
Digging In
For Mr. Grossman, breaking ground on the new medical and wellness complex represents an important step forward.
“We at Baptist Health are honored by the trust members of this community place in us to care for them and their families,” he said. “We take that responsibility to heart and work hard every day to continuously elevate the care we provide.”
L – R: Alex Villoch, Baptist Health Foundation CEO; Peter Chapman, Baptist Health Fishermen’s Community Hospital Board of Directors Chair; Jay Hershoff, Baptist Health Board of Trustees Chair; Drew Grossman, Baptist Health Fishermen’s Community Hospital and Mariners Hospital CEO; Jane Packard, Baptist Health Foundation Council Chair; Glenn Waters, Baptist Health Chief Operating Officer; Joe Natoli, Baptist Health Chief Administrative Officer.
Photo credit: McLaughlinPhotoVideo
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