Conway Medical Center closing its Wellness Center after 18 years

The planned addition of two operating rooms at Conway Medical Center has led to a decision to close the hospital’s Wellness Center, a move that doesn’t sit well with all of its 1,400 members.

“Many of Myrtle Trace residents belong to the Wellness Center,” resident Bill Roessler wrote in an email, “and feel it is very helpful in keeping us and other members of the community active and more healthy than they normally would be.”

The hospital knows that an active lifestyle leads to healthier people, but spokeswoman Julie Rajotte said the decision came down to doing what is best for the hospital in the face of the need to expand.

Rajotte said that increased demand means the medical center will be adding two operating suites and associated functions such as space to store sterile supplies. To do so, the hospital must take space now dedicated to the hospital laundry room and warehouse, so officials had to find space for them to move.

Roessler suggested that either they or the Wellness Center could have been relocated somewhere along Singleton Ridge Road, but Rajotte said putting either facility elsewhere would have necessitated purchasing land and constructing a building, expenses that could affect the hospital’s rates.

Roessler said he can understand that the medical center made a business decision and that he and his wife likely will join another nearby gym that has a swimming pool.

“(Money) is what makes the world go round, unfortunately,” he said.

But for Myrtle Trace residents in particular, the Wellness Center was as convenient as a gym rat could want. It’s maybe a mile from the development to the Wellness Center, and you can get from one to the other without getting on U.S. 501.

“It’s time for us to try to deal with what our most immediate needs are,” Rajotte said.

She said the medical center is the only one on the Grand Strand that does weight loss surgery and that as well as the addition of spinal surgeries and joint replacements are bringing it customers that have created the need for the new operating rooms.

She said that the Wellness Center was the only one in an eight-mile radius when it opened in March 1997, but now there are a half dozen other gyms in the same radius. She said the medical center doesn’t make a profit on the Wellness Center and that, in fact, its rates are higher than at least some of the others in the area.

The closing on July 31 also means that five or six Wellness Center employees could be out of work. Rajotte said the medical center is working with them to identify possible jobs within the hospital that may interest them and for which they could qualify.

Most Wellness Center members pay for their memberships month-to-month, Rajotte said, and those who may have paid in advance will get a refund on what they don’t use.

She said that the laundry and warehouse are key to the medical center’s day-to-day operations so it just made sense to keep them as close to the main building as possible.

The Wellness Center is across a couple of parking lots from the back of the hospital.

She said she understands that change can be difficult for some people and that the convenience of the Wellness Center was important for some members.

But there are alternatives.

“The fact that it’s not the only (gymnasium) certainly played a part in the decision,” she said.

This story was originally published February 18, 2015 at 4:06 PM with the headline "Conway Medical Center closing its Wellness Center after 18 years."