PRINCETON, WV (WVNS)– One hospital in Southern West Virginia now has a new laboratory to keep patients closer to home.
Princeton Community Hospital unveiled its new Cardio Catheterization Laboratory on Friday, September 30, 2022, in a ribbon-cutting ceremony.
A crowd of hospital staff, board members, city members from both Bluefield and Princeton, and WVU Medicine joined together for the ceremony and walked through the different rooms and sections. This state-of-the-art laboratory houses two machines to provide more effective and efficient cardiac care.
Steven Ward, the Director of Interventional Cardiology explained how the machine works.
“This is a boom that allows us to see what’s going on, a monitor, this is a table that allows us to move the patient around and position them and this is what we call a C-Arm which allows us to take X-ray pictures of the heart in focus and other body parts as well,” Ward said.
Karen Bowling, CEO of Princeton Community Hospital, said at first this was a mobile unit not accessible 24/7. When she was welcomed as the new CEO, she made this one of the first projects for the hospital.
She said now residents can get better care while staying local.
“My job is to do everything that I can to ensure that people receive quality health care. This is just one aspect I think of many more things that we’ll be doing to enhance services here with our affiliation with WVU Medicine,” Bowling said.
PCH also partnered with Philipps Healthcare which provided the advanced technology.
Albert Wright, CEO, and President of WVU Health System said this continued alliance with PCH is going to help everyone in the community.
“This is a big commitment by Princeton hospital and by WVU medicine and the board of directors here and I think it’s the right thing to do and it’s a very exciting day to be here,” Wright said.
Bowling added for the current time in order to receive the Catheterization Procedure, you must be referred by your primary care physician and seen by Dr. Ward.