By Liz Beavers
lbeavers@newstribune.info
tribune managing editor

KEYSER — Potomac Valley Hospital is scheduled to begin accepting patients at the new facility on Pin Oak Lane beginning Dec. 5, according to owner Hal McBee.
In the meantime, the general public is being invited to come out and get their first glimpse inside the new $20 million facility Saturday when PVH holds a brief ribbon cutting and open house.
This week, contractors, administrators, and staff members alike have been scurrying to finish up as many of the last-minute details as they can, from putting office chairs together to erecting directional signs and polishing equipment.
“We have to stock the shelves, clean things up, and label the doors,” McBee said Tuesday as he sat in a future secretarial office, on a chair he’d just helped to assemble.
“Very little of the old stuff will be moved,” McBee said, referring mostly to equipment, office furniture, and other similar items.
The actual move, he went on to explain, will be completed in phases.
“Phase 1 will be Friday, when we move a lot of books and stuff that we can do without until we are all the way moved in,” he said. “Then we’ll some of the major equipment we are bringing with us, and the next day we’ll move everything else.
“We’ll line ambulances up to move the patients,” he explained.
The new facility is licensed for 25 beds, will boast an eight-bed emergency room, a five-bed ICU, and 10 acute care semi-private rooms.
New equipment includes a 32-slice (picture) CAT scan, a mobile MRI, ultrasound, digital x-ray, and digital mammogram. The facility will also have a nuclear medicine department.
Administrator Mike Makosky explained that the various departments in the new facility were planned in order to make it easier on the patient.
The mammography equipment, for example, is located next to a “women only” area where the patient may change  her clothes and wait in privacy, the emergency room is located in close proximity to the x-ray department, etc.
Presently, patients undergoing tests or other out-patient procedures in the 75-year-old hospital on Main Streetl find themselves being shepherded from floor to floor, including down to the basement for x-rays.
The new facility will also have a fully staffed cafeteria where the public may get breakfast, lunch or dinner. The cafeteria in the present hospital is only able to serve patients and staff members.
McBee said the new hospital, which has been in the works for approximately 4 years, represents an investment of $20 million - $16 million of which was financed, $2 million in equipment, $1 million of McBee’s money, and $1 million in TIF (tax increment financing) money from Mineral County.
He hopes to have as much done as possible prior to Saturday’s open house, but admits there will be some tasks that remain to be done.
“The OR is one problem,” he said, noting that some of the equipment ordered for the operating room is not due to arrive until Dec. 2.
“We’ve got some doorknobs we need to put on ... there are a lot of little things left yet to do,” he said.
McBee also has plans for some future projects to be launched even after the hospital opens.
“We want to put a little garden with a fountain outside the patients’ rooms,” he said.
In addition to the new hospital and its ample parking lot, the property includes a former residence at the intersection of Pin Oak Lane and U.S. Route 220, which will be Dr. Joe Hahn’s office.
“We have some other possible ideas for down the road,“ McBee said. “We’re trying to make this a medical campus.”
He expressed his excitement over the culmination of over four years of preparation and work to get the hospital up and running.
“The (McBee) family feels really good about doing this for the community,” he said.
“It’s something we’ve been wanting to do for years.”
The open house is scheduled for 2-6 p.m. Saturday. A brief ribbon cutting ceremony will be held at 2 p.m., followed by tours of the facility and refreshments.