HAVERHILL — If you live in Bradford or had occasion to be on the Route 125 stretch of that section of the city yesterday, you may have noticed a steady stream of ambulances passing through.
And if you live near Whittier Rehabilitation Hospital on Summer Street or had occasion to drive by, you may have noticed quite a commotion: Patients on stretchers being loaded into ambulances and patients in wheelchairs being rolled into medical vans, all under the watchful eye of the Haverhill Police Department's mobile command center set up in the parking lot.
The two spectacles were not unrelated.
Yesterday was a practice run for the hospital's big move next Saturday from 76 Summer St. to Whittier's fancy new home four miles away in the Ward Hill Business Park near Interstate 495. The new hospital will bring about 100 jobs to Haverhill and $200,000 in annual property taxes, said Jeff Ventola, Whittier spokesman — and a tenant to a major building in the park,
"We're ... days from the big move and there's a lot of activity right now," Marianne Bitner, director of clinical services for Trinity Ambulance, told Whittier's staff at a planning meeting last week.
"We're handling this like a disaster drill," Bitner said of yesterday's mock move in which 25 workers played the part of patients to simulate next week's real thing.
The new $10 million medical complex is a renovated industrial building overlooking the Ward Hill Connector, which is the main road running from the interstate highway through the business park to Route 125.
The facility includes 60 patient beds, a pool for aquatic therapy and a community re-entry program called Whittier Way, which includes simulated businesses such as a bank, grocery store and movie theater. They allow patients who have suffered trauma, such as brain injuries or a stroke, to practice daily activities in a controlled setting.
Trinity Ambulance and Haverhill police are assisting with Whittier's move, which involves transferring about 50 patients, many of whom have severe spinal injuries, infectious diseases or require respirator machines to help them breathe.
"Patient safety is our top priority," Bitner said, noting that five ambulances and three wheelchair-accessible vans were used for yesterday's trial run and will be used for the actual move Saturday.
The ambulances, which will be tracked by Global Positioning System devices from Trinity's central command center, will use South Main Street (Route 125) instead of I-495 to avoid any potential traffic tie-ups on the highway, Bitner said.
The wheelchair vans can accommodate up to four patients, but the ambulances can carry only one patient at a time, Bitner said. Officials will have a better idea how long the actual move will take after they analyze yesterday's drill, she said.
When the new Ward Hill hospital opens, Whittier will continue to operate medical offices and specialty health-care services at the Summer Street facility, which opened in 1982, Ventola said. All 60 beds at Summer Street are being transferred to rooms three times as large in the new Ward Hill hospital, he said.
At about 105,000 square feet, the new Ward Hill complex will be the health-care network's largest and most modern facility, Ventola said.
At last week's planning meeting, Whittier's staff participated in what they called a "tabletop drill." They reviewed 48 color-coded information cards that will be hung around the necks and wrists of patients during the move. The cards list the name, medical condition and mode of transportation for each patient. During the planning meeting, a clothespin was attached to each card to represent a patient.
During the tabletop drill, workers picked up their mock patients and information cards and exited the large conference room, walking to another entrance to simulate arriving at the new hospital with their patients.
For the real move, employees will also be responsible for transporting personal belongings such as eyeglasses, false teeth and hearing aides with their patients.
The move from Summer Street to Ward Hill was originally expected to take place more than a year ago. It was stalled in January 2006 when Whittier's chief Merrimack Valley rival, Northeast Rehabilitation Health Network, filed a lawsuit to stop it, however. Northeast Rehabilitation has a hospital in Salem, N.H., seven miles from the site of the new Whittier hospital.
The two local health-care giants reached an agreement last year in which Northeast dropped its lawsuit, clearing the way for Whittier's move.
The Whittier network, founded by Dr. Alfred Arcidi in 1982, includes 10 rehabilitation hospitals, health-care centers and nursing homes in Greater Haverhill and throughout the state. Hannah Duston Healthcare Center, The Whittier Pharmacist Inc. and Whittier Healthcare Agency are members of the network in Haverhill.
The building where the new hospital is opening has been empty since Speedline Technologies moved out in May 2002. In August 2005, Whittier bought the Ward Hill property for $4.5 million from the Greater Haverhill Foundation. Also in 2005, the City Council approved a zoning change to allow a hospital in the business park.
Whittier on the move
Patients: 48
Ambulances: 5 (three basic; two advanced with paramedics)
Wheelchair-accessible vans: 3
Miles: 3.9 (along South Main Street/Route 125 through Bradford)
Helping with move: Haverhill Police mobile command center, Trinity Ambulance company
Patient census
Wheelchair patients: 26
Patients with infectious diseases: 23
Patients on breathing machines: 5
Patients on dialysis: 3
NOTE: As of last week. Some of the 48 patients fall into more than one category.
About Whittier's new rehab hospital
Where: 145 Ward Hill Ave.
Cost: $10 million
Timetable: Opening Saturday
Jobs created: About 100
Taxes: $200,000 annually to the city
Capacity: 60 beds
Amenities: Pool for aquatic therapy, community re-entry program that simulates real-life situations for patients
Builder: Turner Construction Co. of New York
