By MICHAEL CRIMMINS
Glasgow News 1
Hospital employees and community members celebrated the grand reopening of the T.J. Samson Community Hospital’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit on Nov. 10.
“I could not be more pleased; truly if someone had not been in this space beforehand I don’t know that [they] could appreciate the drastic change,” the foundation’s executive director Randy Burns said. “It’s truly a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit that we can be proud of and that will be able to provide that warm, comforting space for our staff [and] to the parents of the babies we’ll be caring for.”
The renovation to the unit was first publicly announced during the April 25 Coffee and Commerce as the first capital project of the Children’s Day program, which was absorbed by the T.J. Community Mission Foundation on Oct.4, 2024. Under the foundation’s umbrella, Children’s Day serves as “the pediatric health platform through which the T.J. Community Mission Foundation [will] do all of its pediatric health initiatives,” Burns said during the event.
Burns said it took roughly seven weeks to complete the renovations at a cost of $380,000, which the program already had.
After thanking several people, including members of Alliance Corporation, Burns turned the floor over to the Director of Women and Newborn Care Megan Ritchie, who Burns said was “driving the vision of what the space was going to be.”
“Not only is it more pleasing to the eye, but we have more space for our families,” Ritchie said. “We can allow more privacy for our families…being able to provide that to our patients is going to be huge.”
“Our staff is super excited about this,” she added.
Hanging in the renovated unit is a framed picture — that will be replaced by a more permanent plaque, Burns said — dedicating it to Dr. Bharati Mody.
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