Nearly four years have passed since Fort Riley’s new hospital was expected to open.

The hospital was originally set to open in 2012 to replace Irwin Army Community Hospital, the oldest Army hospital in the nation. Due to continued disagreements between the construction contractor and the government over final inspections of the hospital, the previously scheduled mid-January opening has been scrapped.

Col. Risa Ware, Commander of Irwin Army Community Hospital updated community leaders on the current status of the hospital during the Camplan 2020 update at Fort Riley last Friday.

“The longest distance on a long trip home is that last mile. So we’re in that last mile on the hospital, and despite some of the press you may have seen it’s moving along,” said Col. Ware.

Ware went on to explain that hospital staff are in the building training, furniture is in, 85 percent of the equipment is in, and the contractor is still in the building fixing some deficiencies that need to be fixed before they can fully move in.

“The difference in that hospital and a business operation is that, you know if you have a business, some of those little things that are going on in there you could tolerate in a business because people can evacuate themselves if you had a fire. If we have a fire and we have patients, they can’t necessarily get themselves out.”

At this point Ware was hard pressed to give a hard date of when they will be able to open the new hospital, but said that she would almost guarantee that they will be in the hospital by 2016.

“I think we’re going to be in there by summer (2016). That’s the best estimate of the Army Corps of Engineers, by summer. It could be sooner, it could be later, but we think by summer.”

According to an Associated Press story released on December 5, political pressure is growing to finish the work, even if that means issuing new construction contracts to get it done.