H E A L T H
Healing Environment CREATING A
FOR ALL
RIVERSIDE COMPLETES RENOVATION AND EXPANSION ON THE CAMPUS OF WALTER REED HOSPITAL ON THE MIDDLE PENINSULA.
I
magine remodeling your kitchen for four years, Esther Desimini, Riverside Walter Reed Hospital President said. You work around the construction, you do your best to feed your family, and all the while you look ahead to what you know the final result is going to be.
That’s what it’s been like on the Riverside Walter Reed Hospital campus for the last four years, while the hospital has undergone a more than $55 million renovation and expansion. But now, the construction is complete. The renovation is over. “What Riverside has created here on the Middle Peninsula, is an advanced healing environment that is comfortable, not only for our patients, but also for their families and the entire community, too,” Desimini said, thanking the Riverside team members for taking extra care with patients during the 54
renovation and thanking the community for their patience. The expansion and renovation project marked the most significant construction project at the community hospital since it opened in 1977, Riverside CEO Bill Downey said. “We are so blessed to have something like this in such a small community,” said Jane Niethamer, a Gloucester resident who relocated from Northern Virginia. The hospital’s expansion was anchored by a new twostory, 54,000 square foot Surgical and Inpatient Services building and new main entrance lobby and registration area complete with a grab and go coffee and lunch counter and The Daffodil Gift Shop. The new building and main entrance is conveniently located adjacent to the existing Medical Arts Building and has a covered, drive through drop-off area. The Surgical Services Suite in the new building includes three operating suites, two procedure rooms, and pre-operative and post-operative recovery areas. Among the advances in the February/March 2020
