Plans are in the works for another hospital in West Des Moines

A second Des Moines hospital plans to build a new facility in the capitol city’s growing western suburbs. Mercy Medical Center will retool and expand its existing facilities in downtown Des Moines and build a 40-bed hospital in West Des Moines. Dave Vellinga , Mercy’s president and C-E-O, says several factors conviced hospital officials to expand.Mercy intends to spend 186-million dollars over five years on the project, the hospital’s first major expansion since 1974. Vellinga says they’ll build a five-story wing onto Mercy’s downtown Des Moines hospital; expand serves in Ankeny and Pleasant Hill and build a new, 40-bed hospital they’ll call Mercy West Lakes. The hospital will have an emergency room and operating rooms for surgical proceedures. Once that West Des Moines hospital is built and the downtown Des Moines hospital is expanded, Mercy will close its hospital in the Beaverdale neighborhood of Des Moines. Iowa Health Systems, which includes the merged Iowa Methodist and Iowa Lutheran Hospitals in Des Moines, also plans to build a new hospital in West Des Moines. Both hospital plans must receive approval from state regulators. This fall, state officials will review plans for a new hospital in North Liberty, a suburb of Iowa City.