WORLAND – Banner Health Washakie Medical Center is having a grand opening from 5-7 p.m. today to showcase the community’s new hospital which was three and a half years in the making. The entire community is invited to attend, look around at their leisure and meet with the people who made this event possible.

“It’s an amazing facility. It’s truly one of the best that we can put into this community and I personally feel that Worland deserves the best. I’m incredibly pleased to be able to show it to our community. We are opening the doors to everyone; we want people to be able to walk freely through the halls. This is really that opportunity where people can come to the hospital and see what has been provided here without having to be a patient,” Banner Health Washakie Medical Center CEO Jay Stallings said. “All the decisions that we make are to provide the best facility and technology to ensure that we can provide the diagnostics and care to the people who live in this community and the southern Basin. This has been my reason for being for the last three and a half years to bring this forward as well as to continue to build our clinical team,” he added.

The grand opening will start at 5 p.m. with an opening ceremony with the American Legion leading the flag ceremony. The Worland High School marshazz will be performing the Star Spangled Banner and Pastor Louie Pantelis will perform the blessing of the facility. The ribbon cutting will occur after Wyoming Secretary of State Ed Murray, Banner Health officials, Washakie County Commissioner Aaron Anderson and Washakie Medical Center chairman of the board Dan Scheuerman speak a few words.

“We actually have a lot of people coming in. We have leadership from Banner; from Phoenix [Arizona] as well as from Colorado. ANB are bringing their representatives, Guardian Air they are bringing their executives and most importantly we have our county leadership, our city leadership and our hospital leadership; the board, they will all be here,” Stallings said.

Grand opening attendees will have be able to visit all the improvements to the hospital with staff available to talk with and explain improvements. Stallings stated that teams would be strategically placed in each department to show how health care is provided. He added that visitors will have free rein with the exception of places that would jeopardize the confidentiality of patients in the facility at the time.

“We just want people to walk around and feel as welcome as they possibly can and to come away from the experience with wow that was really neat, this is great, we have a hospital of this quality and substance here,” Stallings said in an earlier interview.

Washakie Medical Center broke ground on the $23.4 million construction project June 16, 2015. Additions to the hospital include: a new patient wing with 12 patient rooms and 16 beds, plus two labor and delivery rooms dedicated to obstetrics. Rooms are larger with some accommodating double occupancy based on demand to provide a total of 18 licensed beds; a new surgical suite with two large, state-of-the-art operating rooms and one endoscopy suite; new pre-operative and post-operative recovery areas; renovations to accommodate a new emergency department; expanded, new laboratory and pharmacy; new respiratory therapy, chemotherapy and endoscopy areas and a renovated front entry with impacts to the admitting, business office, waiting room and gift shop.

Food and beverages will be provided, all from local restaurants.