Just in case you didn’t know – like, you’ve been living in a cave or something – we have a new hospital.

Last week this illustrious columnist sat down with Dennis Popp, president of administration, and we kicked a few questions around. And after we finished sitting and kicking, he was kind enough to walk me through the facility.

I asked him why the local hospital board of trustees had invited Franciscan Health System to build and operate the new hospital and thereby relinquish community control. Dennis told me the board had tried to build a new facility using entirely local funds and incentives, but the banks wouldn’t back such plans. The financial base simply wasn’t there. The board even called upon a “local” good ol’ boy, Dick Kovacevich, now president of Wells Fargo, but to no avail. (Anyway, I’m not sure our current suburban, bedroom community is really that concerned about local control.)

So, with the old hospital growing increasingly dated and obsolete, the Franciscans, who own and operate four other hospitals in western Washington and who, as you may recall, took over our local clinic eight or nine years ago, were called upon. A few years later, after the dust had settled, they produced a state-of-the-art, $75 million facility and “our” hospital became part of the Catholic Health Initiative which, nationally, holds sway over 65 other infirmaries.

Trust me, friends, you’ll be impressed. Dennis thinks it’s one of the top 10 small-community hospitals in the country and I wouldn’t doubt him.

All the patient rooms are private. All of them. The intake rooms, recovery rooms, in-house rooms, intensive care – you name it, it’s private. There are three complete surgery units covering more than 600 square feet.

In keeping with the computer revolution and the wishes of “Obama care,” everything is digital. Diagnostic information and medical pictures and procedures are zapped all over the planet at the speed of light, posing your pain-in-the-butt problem before a specialist in Berlin, Germany. Computers in Intensive Care immediately translate 25 different languages.   And, if they can’t handle your problem here, a chopper on the roof is ready to take you to a place that can. (Unless, of course, you want an abortion, in which case you’ll probably be taken to the chaplain.)

There’s a CAT scan that will slice your brain not only into 10 images, or 20 or even 40, but into 64 colorful slices. Dennis suspects there isn’t another small-town hospital in the country with such an avant garde device.

Something needs to be said about the architectural design of the place. It seems like there are windows and sunlight everywhere. At least that’s true if the sun is out, as it was the day of my tour. In the private rooms, hallways, the cafeteria and even the stairwells. That in itself is enough to make a patient well.

The walls are hung with several wonderful photographs taken of downtown Enumclaw, old-growth logging operations and local farms between 1900 and 1911, as well as photos taken inside the old hospital. There’s also some really fine art works, including oils, watercolors, sculptures and quilting. My compliments to the committee or connoisseur that selected them. If you haven’t yet been in the place because you’ve had no reason to go there, this art is reason enough.

All in all, it’s a hospital our community can be damned proud of.