LAKIN -- "This is new," said Dennis Jones as he walked through the halls and rooms of the Kearny County Hospital. "These offices are all new."

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Becky Bates, a supervisor at Kearny County Hospital, stands in one of the hospital's new trauma rooms. The hopsital went through a renovation and addtion process this year, with work being compelted Aug. 30. A dedication for the project was Sept 18.

"This didn't used to be here," hospital Administrator John Loebl said of a new hallway connecting the lobby area to the lab and X-ray area.

Jones, who served as project director for the renovation and addition project to Kearny County Hospital, joined Loebl and Sue Stingley, director of nursing services for the hospital, for a walk through the hospital Tuesday, pointing out the features of Kearny County Hospital that are new, as well as those already existing and made better during the project.

Kearny County voters approved a bond issue in October 2005 to fund the $9.2 million project that was completed Aug. 30 -- on time and under budget, Jones said. The bond took effect in fall 2006 and raised the county's mill levy about 6 mills -- it's scheduled to sunset in about seven years. A mill is $1 of tax on each $1,000 of assessed property valuation.

A dedication for the finished hospital and High Plains Retirement Village was held Sept. 18 and included Gov. Kathleen Sebelius attending. The project included, among other changes, improving and adding onto the hospital's obstetrics department with LDRP (Labor, Delivery, Recovery and Postpartum) rooms that allow everything during and after the birthing process to occur in one room; remodeling kitchen facilities; adding a surgery unit; and renovating the hospital's emergency facilities.

It used to be that when somebody walked through the entrance of the hospital, there wasn't much space, "and now you walk into a lobby... to people," Stingley said. The new lobby includes three photos, taken by Becky Bates, a supervisor at the hospital, of a sunrise, wheat and a sunset, representing birth, life and death -- as well as the hospital's mission statement of providing quality health care services.

She said the general atmosphere of the hospital was brighter after the project, adding that it's increased client and patient traffic in all departments.

Stingley said somebody had told her that if they built it, people would come.

"Well, they're coming," she said.

The project originally began as an application for grant funding for safety code upgrades, including fire alarms, medical gas and hospital security systems. Loebl said staff knew some renovation and construction would be needed for the upgrades and decided to pursue a larger renovation project for the 30-year-old facility to, among other things, give staff more space, accommodate new physicians coming to the facility, update the hospital's emergency department and make the hospital compliant with regulations to protect patient privacy and medical records.

Facility staff and Hutton Construction, based in Wichita, broke ground on the project in June 2006.

Stingley said the hospital renovation and addition of about 24,000 square feet had helped increase efficiency, including through having inventory in her department located in one place and giving patients better and quicker entry access to outpatient services.

But while the facility is wonderful, Loebl said, a big part of the reason the hospital functions so well comes down to the employees that make up the organization. The care the hospital provides wouldn't be the quality it is without good staff, he said.

"And we have a beautiful facility to do it in," he said.