VIDEO: Nursing Home Expansion

ACKERMAN, Miss. (WCBI) – It’s been sitting vacant for the last five years.

The Choctaw Regional Medical Center finds new use for an old building, by using it as an expansion to the nursing home next door.

This is the only long-term care center in the county, and they need more room.

It’s using the most of what you’ve already been given.

“This facility has been vacant for quite a while, about 5 or 6 years, and it was just important for us to bring it back to life and put a new face on the community, as well as providing a service that’s needed in this community,” said Hospital CEO Jaime Rodgers.

This new service will be a 13-room expansion to the nursing home just next door.

Hospital administration had thoughts on how to use this space. Adding to the nursing home seems to be a perfect fit.

“The community has invested in this facility and the new hospital, you know. They were looking for ways to utilize this space, and it was just a natural fit to expand the nursing home to accommodate more residents,” continued Rodgers.

Funding is mainly going towards the interior: new carpet and new technology, as well as renovations to make a chapel.

Fortunately for the community, not much money will have to be spent on the facility because it’s already there.

“the majority of the work is done. We’re waiting now to get our emergency generators installed to handle the rest of the facility, new h-fax systems and hot water systems and the renovations have been tremendous,” said Rodgers.

One of the main reasons for this extension is more and more people in the area are placed on the waiting lists or they go somewhere else.

“It’s a hard decision for anyone to put their loved one in a nursing home, and if you do get to that point you want to keep mom or dad or your aunt or your uncle you loved one is as close to home as possible,” said Nursing Home Administrator, Leigh-Ann Cobb.

Other parts of the building that this expansion will feature will be a new dining hall, a new recreation room, a barbershop, and a spa.

This renovation is expected to be complete around October.