SMHE Groundbreaking Ceremony for New Emergency Department

A groundbreaking ceremony is scheduled today for a $94 million dollar emergency department at Scripps Memorial Hospital Encinitas.

The project ,when complete, will replace the current ER which is less than half the size, with only a dozen beds, compared to the 27 planned for the new facility. A second floor on the new structure will hold three dozen inpatient beds in private rooms.

Around 40,000 patients use the hospital's emergency department annually.

Scripps Health said the population of coastal North County has increased 20 percent in the past decade, and the hospital's caseload has gone up accordingly.

Actual construction on the project began last month, according to Scripps Health. Opening is scheduled for early in the summer of 2014.

—City News Service