An addition to the Kishwaukee Community Hospital will be completed by July, said Wayne Fesler, Kishwaukee Community Health Services Board of Directors president.

The addition will be used to house a new computerized tomography scanner which will replace the hospital’s present scanner. The hospital leases its present scanner from Basic American Imaging, Lombard, Ill., and the contract is up this year, Fesler said.

The Board of Directors of Kishwaukee Community Health Services Center approved the addition Feb. 24, Fesler said. However, the addition also must have certificate-of-need approval by the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board, he said.

The certificate is a state and federal law that requires institutions to request certification for new projects, Fesler said. “The certificate says the project is justified,” he said.

Construction will begin as soon as the certificate is approved, Fesler said. The work will probably begin by mid-April and end by July, he said.

The addition will cost about $200,000, which the hospital will pay for in cash, Fesler said. “We (the hospital) feel we have the money,” he said.

The addition will be a two-story complex, which will measure about 700 square feet on each floor. It will be located on the north side of the hospital’s radiology department, Fesler said.

A study done by Ernst & Whinney of Chicago determined the location for the addition, Fesler said. The company decided an addition next to the radiology department would be the best long-term solution in terms of money and convenience, he said.

The new location will be much more convenient to patients if it is on the second floor next to radiology, Fesler said. The hospital’s present scanner is located on the first floor next to physical therapy, he said.

The first floor of the addition will be used for dining and conferences because it will be next to the cafeteria which can become quite crowded at times, he said.

The new addition also will free needed space, Fesler said. A pharmacy will take the place of the present scanner area, he said.

The new scanner, estimated at $700,000 will be paid for through a five-year loan from a local bank, Fesler said. “We (the hospital) could have paid for it (the scanner) in cash, but we chose not to because it would be smarter not to. In the long term, it will be cheaper to pay through a loan,” he said.

The new scanner is “an X-ray machine, but different,” KCH Radiology Manager Paul Andreson said. The scanner takes X-rays of parts of a body and “slices” them (the X-rays) into 1 to 10 millimeter sections, he said.

The new computerized scanner can take X-ray slices of the entire body, reconstruct them and re-slice them at a different angle, Andreson said. The scanner will be used to examine spinal and head injuries; the liver, pancreas, spleen and lungs; and to find tumors, he said.

The hospital’s present scanner is about ten years old, Andreson said. It does not have the software or hardware capabilities of the new scanner and cannot perform detailed spinal or head work, he said.