CHRISTUS St. Michael opens new infusion center

TEXARKANA, Texas — CHRISTUS St. Michael opened their new infusion wing to the public Tuesday.

President and CEO Jason Adams said the expansion increases the ability for the hospital to serve more patients in an enhanced environment with greater privacy.

“One of the most important services a hospital provides is intravenous infusion, which is one of the reasons we invested over $500,000 in expanding,” Adams said.

Infusion Center Director Charlotte McKamie said the wing used to be very small, with the original treatment space having been in the current waiting and reception area of the new wing.

“Over time, the Health Center really began to learn of its value, because there’s just not a lot of places where you can go to get an infusion given and nothing else,” McKamie said.

McKamie said employees would push chairs closer and closer together and patients

regularly said they didn’t love the size of the treatment room.

“It wasn’t ideal, but they weren’t leaving because they loved their nurses. Our staff took such good care of them in that uncomfortable space,” McKamie said.

The new wing now holds 12 individual treatment areas with walls around each treatment chair, a television and a curtain for privacy if desired.

“We even have this isolation room that allows us, if there’s a patient that needs to be separated from the rest of the population for whatever reason — maybe they have a migraine or can’t take the noise, whatever it is — we have this room we can put people in (for treatment),” McKamie said.

Patient and project management worker Jesse Buchanan said he was suffering from neck cancer and would get infusions to help with problems the chemotherapy treatment was causing.

“It’s a much better atmosphere, it’s brighter, shinier, obviously, but it’s also spacious. There’s room for a family member for a patient, there’s privacy where there was none in the old center,” Buchanan said.

Buchanan said it was special that he worked on something that helped him.

“It’s that much more for me as a person to see the final results of it,” Buchanan said.

(Staff photo by Mallory Wyatt) CHRISTUS St. Michael Health System staff celebrate the opening of the hospital’s new infusion wing Tuesday in Texarkana, Texas.

(Staff photo by Mallory Wyatt) CHRISTUS St. Michael Health System’s new infusion center is shown during an opening event Tuesday at the hospital in Texarkana, Texas. The new wing now holds 12 individual treatment areas with walls around each treatment chair, a television and a curtain for privacy.