by Heather Hauswirth

Guam - Naval Hospital Commanding Officer Captain David Miller was the guest speaker at today's Rotary Club of Northern Guam meeting. Miller gave a presentation on "Where Navy Medicine's Day Begins", in which he detailed the plans for the new Naval Base hospital, which he says has not been awarded yet, but should be by September or October of this year.

Following that he says it's expected to take approximately three to four years to build with an expected completion date of 2014. Captain Miller says the new hospital will be more modern and efficient than the current hospital. "The new hospital will be of course much more modern. It's going to be a 42-bed inpatient facility, whereas now we have a 38-bed facility; so we will have additional bed capacity that we don't have now. In addition to that the bed design and functionality will be more efficient," he said.

Captain Miller notes that there will be two additional outpatient clinics - one at the Naval Station in Sumay and one that is being designed and planned for the Marine Corps' base to support that branch of service's buildup on Guam.