The city of Boonville recently awarded Cooper County Hospital a 60 thousand dollar grant to put towards a new emergency surgical unit. The Boonville City Council voted unanimously in favor of the grant on January 20th. Fourth Ward Councilman Morris Carter said that, despite the fact that Boonville is a small town, the hospital is a vital part of their community.
“No matter how large or how small you are, you need your hospitals for emergency care," Carter said. "And those few minutes that it would take to transport somebody all the way to Columbia could cost somebody their life, so we need the hospital here."
Carter said that the hospital employs roughly 200 people, and that it is crucial to the local economy that the city keeps such businesses thriving. Furthermore, the hospital is located in Boonville, and many of its employees are Boonville residents. The hospital initially asked for 234 thousand dollars in order to fund the equipment needed for the facility. So far, the community has raised 195 thousand, leaving the hospital just 39 thousand dollars away from their goal.
Danielle Gearheart is the hospital’s CEO. She said that she is impressed with the way the city of Boonville has fought to keep the hospital in business.
“The overwhelming community support we’ve received, we very much appreciate it,” Gearheart said. “You can tell that the community wants us here, and they’re stepping up and making that happen.”
Gearheart isn’t worried about the remaining 39 thousand dollars the hospital needs; she said that there is already a plan in the works to fund the rest of the necessary equipment, and that they have also received outreach from community members wanting to donate to the cause. She expects that the facility will be up and running at full force by the end of this month. In fact, the unit has already opened its doors on a few occasions.
“We have already started,” Gearheart said. “We had our first case back in December, and it went extremely well. So we’ve already seen that turn where patients are able to receive those levels of services here.”
The move to add a surgical department was sparked by financial needs. The hospital has been close to going out of business over the past year, and has faced several years of financial downturn. Gearheart said that by broadening the scope of services they’re able to provide, the hospital will become more profitable as a whole.
We’ve recently gone through a turnaround plan, which has helped get our operation to a break-even basis essentially,” Gearheart said. “What we’re looking to do with our surgery department is reopen that to allow us to continue to grow and reinvest in our capital and in our people.”
