By Nicole Lauren

ONLEY, Va.- After nearly three years and $90 million, Riverside Shore Memorial Hospital in Accomack County is getting ready to open.

The new hospital campus in Onley - located about 30 minutes north from its present campus in Nassawadox - consists of three buildings, including the hospital, cancer center and office building.

John Peterman, vice president/administrator of Riverside Shore Memorial, said the new hospital is one of a kind.

"The benefits to the citizens of the Eastern Shore are obviously a modern hospital, with access to the latest technology and the promise to grow and expand that," he said. "I think you'll see a family-friendly, family-focused care delivery system."

During the next couple weeks, some of the staff will be making the move over to the new hospital. However, the entire move will be made with patients on the morning of Feb. 25.

"We plan to start as I said at 7 a.m., and we will open the emergency department and the mother-baby labor unit here and we will close the departments at our Nassawadox campus at 7 a.m," said John Peterman, vice president/administrator of Riverside Shore Memorial Hospital. "We will finish treating patients there but all new patients will come here. Then we will start moving in patients from their beds upstairs at our current hospital at 8 a.m. Then we plan to have everyone here and in their beds by noon or 1 o'clock Saturday afternoon."

After all the patients from the emergency and labor unit have been moved into the new facility, ambulances will be making shifts every 10 minutes carrying one patient. Peterman said the hospital will have several volunteer ambulances helping out that day until of the patients have been successfully transferred.

There is no word yet on what will happen to the old hospital campus after it is vacated.