VA opens new emergency department Monday morning

Published 12:10 am Saturday, February 1, 2025

By Elisabeth Strillacci

SALISBURY — It has been in the planning stages since 2015, and on Monday, Feb. 3, the new emergency department of the the W.G. (Bill) Hefner Salisbury Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center will open its doors to patients.

The ribbon cutting ceremony Friday, Jan. 31, was attended not just by hospital leaders and local dignitaries, including Carlton Jackson from the Salisbury city council, but a strong showing of the facility’s staff.

“We are very excited to begin using this new, state-of-the-art facility that is inclusive, private, organized and bright,” said Dr. Stephanie Rose, acting chief of the emergency department. “We come to work every day for the veterans, and this is one more way of living up to that commitment.”

The new emergency department boasts approximately 8,400 square feet of state-of-the-art patient care space, featuring 18 private patient rooms including 13 basic care rooms, one woman’s health room, one isolation room, one mental health room, one bariatric room and one code blue room. Four of the 13 basic care rooms can be utilized as pandemic areas, and two can serve as minor procedure rooms. There is a spacious, collaborative centralized staff work area as well as a dedicated decontamination room for national emergency response to hazardous events.

Charles “Dave” Collins, associate director of the VA center, thanked everyone involved in bringing the new department to fruition.

“This is a historic day for the Salisbury VA and veterans,” Collins said. “It represents a big investment in the health and well-being of our veterans, allowing us to provide veterans with timely and accessible care. An emergency can happen at any time, and they deserve prompt and effective treatment. This will bring shorter wait times, a more streamlined process, and better outcomes for our veterans.

“In addition, our staff here has a unique understanding of the challenges veterans face. We are committed to meeting those challenges with the best possible resources.”

Jackson said the VA has a place in his own heart, not only because he is a veteran, but because for 38 years, his father was a nurse’s aid at the VA, and though he himself did not end up working there, he “did learn to play golf. Because the cemetery behind here was once a nine-hole golf course and about every Tuesday and Thursday evening, my dad and I would go play golf.”

His granddaughter is also a nurse in the surgical care department, so the facility is near and dear to him.

“I think sometimes we focus too much on the down side of things,” Jackson said. “I do know you can have all the state of the art technology and the best facilities and the newest buildings, but it is the individual commitment of the staff that really makes it work the way it does.”

Those at the ribbon cutting were treated to a tour of the new facility, which not only boasts rooms that were reconfigured after COVID to deal with potential needs for isolation again, but offers a decontamination room.

“That’s required by OSHA for any emergency department,” explained Rose. Being an industrial area, Rowan has the potential for disasters that would require such a facility, and the VA is “responsible for humanitarian care, not just of veterans, but the public, including our staff,” said Rose.

The design of the new department is clearly well thought out, with a “code blue” or resuscitation room just inside the ambulance bay.

“So if someone is getting CPR on the ambulance we can bring them right in and continue it,” explained Nurse Manager Tony Oliphant, who led visitors on the tour. Oliphant said he and the staff are “prepared and excited” for the new opening. He pointed out that the rooms all offer lift assist tools and the fact that four of the rooms can be set for negative pressure for COVID cases is a relief.

Those rooms were part of the pivot that Rose explained had to be made after the initial drawings and plans were completed.

“We started with the first drawings in 2015, and they took three years to complete,” she said. “Then, when COVID hit, we had to pivot and make some changes, some different accommodations.” And going forward, should there be another pandemic, the department will be ready.

She said there is no need for additional staff, “we have great staffing already and we have been practicing so we are prepared. From summer of 2024, we’ve had construction meetings, and we have gotten to know the workers on a first name basis, so we are very familiar with the department, very prepared. Sunday night shift will end and when the morning shift begins, nurses will be at the new station.”