4-Story Health Services Pavilion at St. Francis Will Be Dedicated

St. Francis Medical Center recently opened its new Health Services Pavilion, marking completion of the second phase of a 10-year, multimillion-dollar “renaissance” campaign designed to improve health care for communities served by the Catholic hospital.

The four-story, 160,000-square-foot structure will be dedicated in a ceremony at 11 a.m. Friday. Cardinal Roger Mahoney of the Los Angeles Catholic archdiocese and other dignitaries are scheduled to attend. Family Fiesta, a free community health and safety fair, is planned from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday to introduce the facility to local residents.

The Health Services Pavilion, which cost $42 million, includes a rooftop helipad, emergency and ambulatory services. They include state-of-the-art heart and oncology treatment centers; industrial medicine and diagnostic imaging units; physical, occupational and speech therapy facilities, and the medical center’s surgery department and intensive care unit.

Construction began in November, 1989, at Imperial Highway and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. The Health Services Pavilion is the first patient services building constructed as part of a multiphase master plan to update the entire 515-bed facility within the next decade.

St. Francis Medical Center, which serves the predominantly Latino communities of Lynwood, South Gate, Huntington Park, Downey, Bell, Bell Gardens, Compton, Maywood and Cudahy, admits approximately 14,000 patients a year and delivers about 400 babies a month. It is said to have the busiest private emergency department in Los Angeles County, with more than 60,000 visits yearly.