Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Mercy Center Has Topping Out Ceremony

Mercy Heart Center of St. Joseph's Regional Health Center held a topping-out ceremony Friday, October 3.

A topping-out ceremony is a tradition in which an evergreen tree is raised to the highest point of a structure. For the Nabholz Construction Corporation, the general contractor of Mercy Heart Center, the ceremony recognized the craftsmanship and teamwork of jobsite employees, signaled the end of a major phase of the project and signified that there was no loss of life or serious injury during construction.

St. Joseph's $3 million Mercy Heart Center is scheduled to open in spring 1998. And, according to Virginia Meek, the recently appointed director of the Mercy Heart Center: "To date, the project is on schedule. The 31,000 square foot facility will be exclusively dedicated to the prevention and treatment of heart disease."

The center will house a registration area, expanded cardiac and pulmonary rehabilitation programs, two large classrooms, a conference room, the cardiac emergency center, a large waiting area exclusively for families of cardiac patients and a suite to prepare and recover cath patients.

One of the large classrooms will be equipped with a teaching kitchen to allow nutritional counseling and heart healthy cooking demonstrations and classes.

The chest pain emergency center will be located adjacent to the existing emergency area and will feature five cardiac observation beds.

In addition, Mercy Heart Center will be leasing space to the Central Arkansas Cardiovascular Institute, including: Fred Heinemann, M.D., Brad LeMay, M.D., Stanley Josef, M.D., Greg St. John, M.D., and Alan Lee, M.D.