BAMBERG, S.C. — It was a special and historic day for residents in the Bamberg area as the new Regional Medical Center Bamberg-Barnwell emergency medical center had it's grand opening.
A ribbon cutting ceremony was held Tuesday outside of the new 24-hour medical center. The nearly 21,000-square foot facility will serve as an emergency room and outpatient care unit.
The state-of-the-art building will house nine private treatment rooms, CT imaging, radiology department and a helicopter pad. But many residents say the new hospital is a long time coming.
Many in the area have gone without a nearby emergency room for quite sometime as the Barnwell Hospital closed in 2016, and the Bamberg County Hospital shut it's doors in 2012.
The removal of the two facilities caused a lot of local residents, like Dorthy Creeche, to take family members long distances to seek medical care.
Creeche describes a time when her husband fell ill saying, "He had some issues and I had to take him all the way to Columbia and I didn't know if he would make it to get there. So this will be wonderful to have one (hospital) close in emergency situations."
The new medical center will be open 365 days a year and 7 days a week, and will officially open to the public next week.
