The Taylorville Kiwanis Club heard about construction starting on the new 60-million dollar Taylorville Memorial Hospital, during their weekly luncheon Tuesday.

T-M-H Chief Executive Officer Kim Bourne told Kiwanis members about the project, which officially got underway this week.  Bourne said that a group of Catholic nuns built Saint Vincent Memorial Hospital in Taylorville in 1906, with the current 5-story facility built by the sisters in 1954. 

The hospital became Taylorville Memorial Hospital, operated by Memorial Health Systems, in 1995, and Bourne said the new lobby, surgery and radiology building, along with new space for Springfield Clinic, was constructed in 2011.

Bourne told the Kiwanis Club that the 1954 building now has infrastructure and code-related deficiencies, which caused hospital officials to begin work on plans for a new hospital building in 2015.

The new Taylorville Memorial Hospital building is actually being built in 2 phases, with phase one just starting.  The hospital will move into the completed phase one in January of 2020, moving out of the 1954 building.  Phase 2, which will be support offices, will replace the 1954 building, and will be ready to move into in January of 2021.

The Taylorville Kiwanis Club is part of global organization of volunteers dedicated to improving the world one child and one community at a time.  Weekly meetings are held Tuesdays at noon at the Taylorville Memorial Hospital auditorium.  For information on the club, go to taylorvillekiwanis.com.

PICTURED:    Kim Bourne (center), C-E-O of Taylorville Memorial Hospital, was Tuesday's guest speaker at the weekly luncheon of the Taylorville Kiwanis Club at the T-M-H auditorium.  Kiwanis program chair Raedena Ryan is at the left; Kiwanis Club president Martin Vota is at the right.