Kalispell Regional Medical Center for the first time is asking for money from the public to fund a capital project: expansion of its emergency-room operation.

The hospital is long overdue for an expansion of its Emergency Services Department (a term that includes the emergency room and ALERT services).

A $14 million project using existing hospital space would more than triple the size of the department. Construction is expected to begin as soon as $9 million is raised — and a considerable amount of that already has been raised in house.

Board members, employees, volunteers and medical staffers have put in $5.4 million to expand the Emergency Services center. Another $3 million from community sources leaves the Kalispell Regional Healthcare Foundation less than a million dollars shy of beginning the project before even going public.

The emergency room was last remodeled in 1991, designed to serve 13,000 people a year in its 8,179 square feet.

Last year, the Emergency Services Department had nearly 23,000 patients.

The proposed plan will increase total space to 37,516 square feet with 34,616 square feet exclusively patient space.

This would allow the department to serve between 35,000 and 40,000 patients a year and should last the hospital for another 25 years if current population growth models remain the same.

The current crush of patients can, on rare occasions, lead to situations where patients detoxing from alcohol or other narcotics are sharing space with victims of accidents and sexual assault, leaving some patients feeling their privacy and safety are compromised.

Tagen Vine, director of the Kalispell Regional Healthcare Foundation, said while these incidents aren’t common, the expansion will be good for patients and medical personnel alike.

“To keep up with the growth, we need to expand,” he said. “We are trying to plan for growth. We don’t want to look back in five years and say ‘Oh, we should have.’ We first need to catch up to where we are already and then expand beyond that.”

By expanding the emergency department within the confines of the existing building — particularly into the space formerly occupied by same-day surgery — rather than constructing new, Vine said the hospital would save nearly $10 million.

“We expect to be all done in the next eight months to a year, max,” Vine said. “We started planning this project over two and a half years ago.”

It takes a brief tour of the current emergency department to see how dire the need is. The single nursing station is so cramped with computers that Emergency Department Manager Mae Stubbs said when she asks Information Technology workers to install a new one, they turn white.

“We are using every square foot we can here,” she said. “Anywhere we can put a shelf or store more supplies, we are currently doing so.”

Stubbs and the doctors and nurses who work in the emergency department have to deal with cramped quarters in the examination rooms — there are just 13 — which can make it difficult to provide for a patient with full-body trauma. A central pillar is close to the beds, restricting space.

The new plans will increase the number of beds to 30 and give medical personnel more space with which to work on patients suffering from trauma.

Detox rooms will increase from one (a featureless former broom closet with a rubber bed) to four rooms, all larger to accommodate for patients coming down from drugs.

The current room used for victims of sexual assault is at the end of a hallway that passes by the nurses’ station and several examination rooms. Stubbs derisively calls it the “walk of shame.”

“These people have just been through an extremely traumatizing situation and now they feel like all these people are watching them,” she said. “It can make everything feel worse.”

The expansion will provide an easy way to get into a sexual assault examination room without prying eyes.

“They will be able to come in through a side door, get examined, shower, burn their old clothes and get a new pair of sweats on us,” Vine said.

The emergency room each year treats around 80 sexual assault victims, half of whom are children. This expansion is designed with patient comfort in mind, or at least as much as can be provided.

Other amenities will be a second CT machine and more X-ray machines, a negative pressure room (air will flow into the room) for infectious disease and a positive pressure room (air flows outwards) for patients dealing with cancer or otherwise have weakened immune systems.

Vine said doctors were consulted on the needs of the new Emergency Services Department, and that includes three nurses stations that can “flex” with staffing as need dictates.

With all the plans, Vine hopes community members will step up when they are needed. He said the hospital doesn’t like having to ask the community for help, but the hospital has no “pot of gold” stored in the basement.

The recently built surgical services tower cost $40 million and the emergency department was put as a lower priority. It isn’t any longer.

“I think everybody can see this is a community asset,” Vine said. “If I have a heart attack on the 14th green of Eagle Bend Golf Course, I want to know a red bird is going to come and pick me up. All gifts add up to help. Even $10 is going to help add up at the end.”

As a Level III Trauma Center (Stubbs said the capability is there to rise to Level II) Kalispell Regional Medical Center can respond to most major traumas in half an hour or less. With ALERT available along with other regional specialties such as a neonatal unit, hospital administrators hope Flathead residents will open their pocketbooks.

“We hope to keep medical costs some of the lowest in the state and lowest in the country,” Vine said. “Philanthropy is critical in this project and we know the community can help.”

Reporter Ryan Murray may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at rmurray@dailyinterlake.com.