UPMC Chautauqua WCA and local elected officials participate in the groundbreaking ceremony for the women’s and maternity care center and inpatient adolescent and adult mental health units expansion project. P-J photo by Dennis Phillips

Jamestown will soon have a new 18,000-square-foot addition to provide state-of-the-art maternity services to women and psychiatric care for children and adults dealing with mental illness.

On Friday, UPMC Chautauqua WCA hosted a groundbreaking ceremony for their new women’s and maternity care center and inpatient adolescent and adult mental health units. The addition is made possible from the $26.4 million the state awarded UPMC Chautauqua WCA last year.

In March 2016, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that more than $155 million in grants were awarded to 10 projects in Western New York. The funding was part of a $1.5 billion commitment by the state to assist health care providers fund capital improvements and further develop health systems.

The awards were made through the Capital Restructuring Financing Program and Essential Health Care Provider Support program. Both programs were created by the governor to support the Delivery System Reform Incentive Program, the main mechanism for investing $7.3 billion in Medicaid savings from a waiver between New York and the federal government. The goals of the program includes reducing health care costs, improving the health of New Yorkers and reducing avoidable hospital admissions and emergency room visits by 25 percent by 2020.

The state granted WCA $26.4 million for capital projects under the WCA Transformational Plan. Around $20 million awarded to UPMC Chautauqua WCA will be used for the expansion project.

“This investment helps us meet the needs of our community,” said Betsy T. Wright, UPMC Chautauqua WCA chief executive officer and president.

Wright said construction will start soon on the new women’s and maternity care center and inpatient adolescent and adult mental health units, which will open in 2019. Clark Patterson Lee handled the project design and LeChase Construction will handle the construction.

“This 18,000-square-foot project represents the power of people working together,” said David P. Gibbons, UPMC Hamot president. “Projects like these are the true beacon of progress and hope.”

State. Sen. Cathy Young, R-Olean, said it is important for upstate New York cities to have state-of-the-art facilities that will be available once the expansion project is completed.

“It is because of you we are able to move the hospital forward,” she said.

County Executive Vince Horrigan said it is affiliations like the one between UPMC and WCA Hospital, which became official last year, that set a great example of how important it is for all entities to collaborate and find new partnerships to enhance services.

“I believe this is the secret to our future,” Horrigan said.

Also on Friday, UPMC Chautauqua WCA held their 22nd annual Meeting of the Corporations. Wright and affiliated board chairs delivered a recap of the past year’s accomplishments and financial summary.

“As I reflect on the activities and accomplishments of this hospital, I am reminded of the incredible work that we do at UPMC Chautauqua WCA,” Wright said. “Last year was a time of change, tremendous opportunities and intentional undertakings that set the stage for what lies ahead.”

“In what was considered to be one of our most significant milestones last year, WCA and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center announced that WCA would integrate into the UPMC network to officially be renamed UPMC Chautauqua WCA. We are bound together by a mission founded by a small group of impassioned women in 1885 to improve the health and well-being of the people they cared deeply about. Together with UPMC and UPMC Hamot, we preserve this mission to deliver world-class care, right here, in the communities where you live, work and play.”

Wright reported on a number of other achievements, including New York state funding in the amount of $700,000 that will be purposed for the construction of a 20-bed, long-term residential treatment program, slated to open in 2018. The treatment program has been hailed a positive investment in the community that will serve an epidemic of substance abuse in the past several years across the state and recognized as a critical need by Cuomo and the New York state of Alcoholism and Substances Services. Other highlights mentioned: new technology capabilities that expand delivery of patient care; substance abuse detoxification services that fill a vital community need; a new treatment for patients affected with prostate cancer; and a multi-million dollar construction project supported with state funds that expands women’s and maternity care services and mental health services that will move from the Jones Memorial Health Center campus to the Foote Avenue campus.

Steven Kilburn, UPMC Chautauqua WCA Board of Directors chairman, said the past year was an historic one for the hospital.

“I trust that by now that we are well aware that this past year has, with no exaggeration, been a genuinely historic one for our hospital,” Kilburn said. “We really have an abundance of encouraging news to share and to celebrate today. Of course, chief amongst our accomplishments over this past year has been the completion of our affiliation with UPMC. I have to say that even I have been surprised, happily so, at the impact which this affiliation is already having on our hospital, less than six months into it. I am encouraged about the strength and the depth to the patient care we can look forward to in the year and years to come.”

The meeting concluded with a ceremonial affiliation wall dedication honoring the hospital’s integration into the UPMC system last year.