Salem Hospital To Expand With 24 More Private Rooms Due In 2024

SALEM, MA — Salem Hospital is planning to add 24 private patient rooms — including 13 additional medical-surgical beds — in an expansion expected to be completed in early 2024.

The hospital said the Department of Public Health approved the expansion that it said will be created from existing shell space above the Pingree floor and will increase its capacity to 212 licensed beds.

"The additional space enables us to admit patients more quickly from the emergency or operating rooms and cut down on wait times," Salem Hospital President Dr. David Roberts said. "It also enables us to convert our few remaining four-bed rooms into double rooms and provide more privacy for our patients and their visitors."

The hospital said it has faced steadily increasing demand for admissions with the occupancy rate going from 79 percent in 2019 to 95 percent currently. The strain on capacity has created long wait times during the several surges of the COVID-19 health crisis since March 2020.

Hospital capacity strain was often cited in the Salem Board of Health's decisions to impose indoor mask mandates and a short-lived COVID-19 vaccine requirement for entrance into non-essential indoor businesses one year ago.

"Patients who deferred care, particularly preventative care, are arriving at the hospital with more serious illnesses and therefore are occupying beds longer," Roberts said. "That impacts the entire system. Add in the challenges we’ve had more recently with RSV and flu, we really see an adverse impact on wait times.

"The addition of even a small number of beds enables us to operate at a more reasonable occupancy rate and better meet the needs of the communities that rely on us."

Salem Hospital also recently opened a new 16-bed mental health unit for increased needs in adult emergency care.

"We're looking at every possible way to address capacity challenges and this is another example of that," Roberts said.

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)