BRISTOW, Okla. — The Bristow Medical Center has been closed for three days and continues to be closed with an unknown reopening day.
“My hands are tied right now. We have to have those licenses,” Bristow Mayor Rick Pinson said.
The Bristow Medical Center was previous operated by Bristow Endeavor Healthcare.
The city decided to terminate their lease and approved a proposal from Carrus Health to take over operations starting January 1st.
The issue, Endeavor owned the license for the hospital, leaving Carrus Health to get a new one.
However, that’s being held up as they wait for the state checklist of required repairs to the old facility.
“From what I understand and have heard, they will give us a 90 day time frame to get some of these done, but we are going to go in there and punch them out,” Mayor Pinson said.
In the meantime, they have other agencies on standby to help patients in case of an emergency.
“Creek County has pledged us two ambulances in Bristow and also we have a really top notch fire department with paramedics involved there that can help someone," Mayor Pinson said. "Right now anybody who has an emergency situation just needs to call 911.”
Once they get the license and repair list, Mayor Pinson says it will take about 3- 4 days to get the ER back open and 2-3 months to get the hospital running again.
They plan to use this time to clean, paint, and make small upgrades to keep the facility going.
“I’ve got a whole crew of people including volunteers. I’ve had numerous calls of community people wanting to help," Mayor Pinson said. "I mean this is a bad deal for us but I think that this is going to be a deal that’s going to unite this community.”
There are also plans to build a new hospital.
In 2021, Bristow voters passed a sales tax to pay for construction, plans which were made prior to Carrus taking over. Now, those plans have changed.
“Carrus modified them and downsized them to make them more affordable and more usable,” The Mayor said.
Mayor Pinson anticipates construction on the new facility to begin in about a year and it will take about 2 years to finish.
Again, the Bristow Medical Center is still closed tonight and in an emergency you should call 911.
We will keep in touch with the mayor and Carrus Health to find out when they get the licenses to reopen the hospital.
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