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Roper St. Francis Berkeley Hospital To Add 50 Beds, Expand ER

by The Berkeley Observer
Credit: Roper St. Francis Healthcare

BERKELEY COUNTY, S.C. – Roper St. Francis Berkeley Hospital will more than double in size within four years as part of Roper St. Francis Healthcare’s bold new strategic plan.

The South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control has approved Roper St. Francis Healthcare’s Certificate of Need request to build an additional four-story tower on the hospital’s Berkeley County campus. The addition will transform the campus and give it adequate space to serve the booming population.

“Our hospital’s beds have been full since the day we opened, and we’re thrilled to be able to expand to give more patients access to our award-winning care,” said Dr. Jeffrey DiLisi, president and CEO of Roper St. Francis Healthcare. “We look forward to enhancing our team and footprint to meet our growing communities’ needs.”

Credit: Roper St. Francis Healthcare

The approved plans involve doubling the hospital’s beds from 50 to 100 beds as well as adding 200,000-square-feet of new or renovated space to the current 116,000-square-foot hospital.

The state also will allow the hospital to add the following:

  • 21 patient care bays in the ER for a total of 35
  • Four new operating rooms for a total of eight
  • Additional CT and MRI machines, bringing the total to two each
  • Expanded pharmacy and lab areas.

The expansion will make Roper St. Francis Berkeley Hospital the healthcare system’s third largest hospital, behind Roper Hospital and Bon Secours St. Francis Hospital.

Roper St. Francis Healthcare championed for 11 years the need for Berkeley County to have a full-service hospital. When the hospital opened on Oct. 4, 2019 – the first of its kind in 45 years – it already was undersized because of the county’s tremendous population growth during that 11 years.

Credit: Roper St. Francis Healthcare

In its most recent CON decision, the state affirmed that the proposed expansion would not adversely affect occupancy rates at other existing facilities.

Construction could begin as early as November 2023, and the additional could open by 2026. The project is expected to cost $193 million.

The need to expand Roper St. Francis Berkeley Hospital is a testament to its success in less than three years of serving the community

“We pledged to Berkeley and Dorchester Counties that we will deliver quality, affordable healthcare close to where residents live and work, and we are fulfilling that promise,” said Jennifer Crawford, chief nursing officer at Roper St. Francis Berkeley Hospital who has lived in the community since 1996 and is active in numerous school and community events. “I am so proud of the fact that our hospital has exceeded the expectations of our growing and vibrant community.”

In November, Dr. DiLisi announced a bold roadmap for the next decade for the Lowcountry’s largest healthcare system for adults that centered on caring for more patients, expanding services and modernizing technology to better serve future generations. One of the five key initiatives of that plan was optimizing the healthcare system’s footprint in the Lowcountry, which included expanding Roper St. Francis Berkeley Hospital, building a new Roper Hospital and providing additional healthcare services in highly populated and growing communities.

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