Mercy Health Love County - News

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Growers Market Being Converted to Ambulance Station

Posted on Tuesday, November 26th, 2024

     

 

Features of the former Growers Market Building on hospital grounds at 466 Legacy Park Lane are leading to its immediate conversion to medical services.  Mercy Health Love County Hospital administrator Scott Callender addressed the topic last week.

“We have to serve the medical needs of the community first and our priority right now is to get our ambulance station and emergency department back to full strength,” he said.

The Growers Market Building has been out of commission since the April 27 tornado gashed and collapsed a portion of its roof. The damage has since been repaired.

Love County EMS ambulance service has drawn up a new interior design of bedrooms, bathrooms, showers, dining and meeting space, and medical supplies area.

Carpentry and plumbing work will begin immediately, in hopes of having the conversion finished by the time a temporary emergency department, now under construction on the opposite side of Legacy Park Lane, is complete in the spring.

“It is cost-effective and a quick turnaround to convert the Growers Market Building into an ambulance station,” Callender said.

The building opened in 2016, covers 4,200 square feet, and includes garage doors on three sides and 2,400 square feet of awning on the south side.  On the north side is a back-up generator and an enclosed set of decontamination showers. On the east is a separate 16’ x 30’ storage building.

“Right now, the ambulance staff needs a suitable place to sleep overnight,...

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See Hospital Photos from November 2024

Posted on Monday, November 11th, 2024


Clinic Posts Civil Rights Policy

Posted on Monday, November 4th, 2024


Hospital Elects New Board Chair

Posted on Monday, October 28th, 2024

Richard Barker of Marietta is the new chairman of the Love County Health Center Board of Control. Members Steve Smith, Andrea Locke, and Lenna Radde elected him to the post at a Board meeting on October 24.

Barker was hospital administrator from 1990 until his retirement in 2021. He was appointed to the Board in 2023. The members then voted to send to the Love County Commissioners the name of Connie Graham of Leon to fill the Board vacancy created by the recent death of former chair Dr. Jack Testerman.

Hospital Administrator Scott Callender reported on numerous progress steps on the road to fully resuming hospital operations, which have been limited since an April 27 tornado.

The clinic building reopened in June, and the full complement of doctors and nurses treat patients weekdays. The Therapy Building reopened in July. Physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy take place Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Radiology ultrasound treatments occur there on Wednesdays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

The next service to resume will be a temporary emergency room on a site staked out south of the clinic on Legacy Park Lane.  Bore holes were drilled last Friday in the first step toward construction, and the ER is expected to be up and running next spring.

The Growers Market building has a new roof and a plan for redesign to become the new home of Love County EMS Station 1.

The ambulance service has been operating temporarily from the former car dealership at...

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Testerman was a Brilliant Leader

Posted on Tuesday, October 15th, 2024


Dr. Jack Testerman in 2022

The Love County Health Center Board of Control lost a brilliant  chairman in the passing of Dr. Jack Testerman on September 29, 2024.

A professor of management, marketing, statistics, and entrepreneurship, Testerman brought a high level of knowledge to the office.

In failing health the past six months, Testerman conducted the September Board meeting at his home. He was 90 years old.

He had chaired the Board since 2013 and he had served as a member for an amazing 34 years, having first been appointed by the Love County Commissioners on March 1, 1990.

The Love County native held a PhD in statistics from the University of Texas and had taught at the Business Schools of the University of Southwestern Louisiana  (now Louisiana-Lafayette) and Southeastern Oklahoma State University in Durant.

 “He knew how  to run an organization at a very, very high level. He was guiding us with what he was teaching,” said Richard Barker, a fellow Board member.

Barker, prior to appointment to the Board six months ago, had spent his career at the hospital, including  30  years as CEO and Administrator until retiring in 2021.

“Dr. Testerman knew marketing and management and was a whiz in mathematics,” Barker said. “He would run the numbers and we would look at things together. Many times I felt like he knew the answer- he was just letting me find out.”

“Jack taught me how to ask the important questions, and how to think globally about how a hospital...

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