Mercy Hospital 2

April 2012: Workers put the finishing touches on Mercy Hospital Joplin, a new interim medical facility that is replacing the nine-story St. John’s Regional Medical Center, which took a direct hit from the May 22 tornado. Mercy – the new name for St. John’s – opened this interim 102-bed hospital in mid-April to serve as its primary care facility until a new, $950 million hospital is completed in 2015. This one-story interim hospital can deliver many of the same types of services as the old facility. The interim hospital was built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at the request of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which has funded about $102 million of the cost. The rest of the cost is being funded by the hospital’s insurance and other resources.