"It's incredibly rare for a rural community to get healthcare back once it's been lost," Collin Henry, Senior Vice President of Development at Saint Francis Health System, told FOX23 when Saint Francis Eufaula opened in July. Nearly four months later the doors are open, and the building at 5 Hospital Drive is partway through its buildout. Patients are already coming in steadily. CT, X-ray and ultrasound run from temporary mobile units. Six more emergency rooms have been funded but not built yet. The Eufaula ER that opened this summer is the first phase of the facility. The rest is being added while patients use it.
A decade on a 7-to-7 schedule
The building has changed hands several times. According to the Muskogee Phoenix, the hospital was built in 1975 as Community Hospital Lakeview and run by the City of Eufaula until 1985. Later it became Epic Medical Center. When Epic announced it would end acute care, it pointed to falling federal, state and insurance reimbursement, rising operating costs and fewer admissions.
| Year | What happened at 5 Hospital Drive |
|---|---|
| 1975 | Community Hospital Lakeview is built and run by the City of Eufaula |
| 1985 | The City sells the hospital to Community LifeCare Corporation |
| December 2008 | BHC, LLC buys the hospital |
| 2016 | Acute care ends and the building becomes an urgent care and clinic, open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. |
| July 11, 2026 | Saint Francis Eufaula opens with a 24-hour emergency department |
| Fall 2026 | The City Council approves $3 million in state grant funding for an expansion |
For ten years, the hours were what mattered. The Muskogee Phoenix reported that after the change, the building shared space with Cardiac Clinic of Muskogee and CCOM Medical Group Clinic, with services from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily. In May 2016, News On 6 noted that this left Eufaula with no medical facility open around the clock. It named Muskogee and McAlester as the closest hospitals, each about 30 miles away. So from 7 p.m. until morning, the nearest emergency department was a half-hour drive or more.
What opened on July 11
Saint Francis Eufaula opened at 1 p.m. on July 11, 2026. FOX23 listed what it offers: 24/7 emergency care, lab services on site, imaging, stabilization and treatment of serious illness and injury, direct access to specialists, and coordinated transfer for inpatient, surgical, trauma and specialty care. Saint Francis held a grand opening event on August 5, according to KTUL.
Inpatient beds and surgery are handled through transfer, so Saint Francis Eufaula works as a 24-hour front door. Patients are seen, tested and stabilized in Eufaula, and moved elsewhere if they need a hospital stay. What Eufaula lacked for ten years was that front door during the twelve hours the old clinic was closed.
Twenty-two a day, three months in
The building got busy quickly. On October 7, 2026, the Eufaula Indian Journal reported that about 1,900 patients had been treated since emergency services began on July 11. That works out to an average of about 22 patients a day in under three months.
Twenty-two a day is roughly one patient an hour, around the clock, every day since opening. Before July, that steady stream of chest pains, broken wrists, cut hands and feverish children at midnight had to go to Muskogee or McAlester, or wait for the clinic to open at 7 a.m.
All of those patients have been seen in the opening-phase setup. Saint Francis has said CT, X-ray and ultrasound are already available through temporary mobile units. Every scan in those first 1,900 visits was done in a mobile unit parked at a building that is still waiting on its permanent imaging space.
Where the $3 million goes
The funding grew before it was approved. The City of Eufaula first announced that the City Council would consider accepting a $2 million grant from the Oklahoma State Department of Health for the Saint Francis Eufaula Emergency Department. The City said the grant would be administered through the City, with Saint Francis carrying out the project, and thanked State Representative Tim Turner for helping secure the funding. By the time of the vote, the figure was larger. KJRH reported on September 15 that the council had voted the day before to accept $3 million in ARPA funds from the state health department.
Saint Francis says the money will pay for two things:
- Six more emergency department rooms, added to the existing department at 5 Hospital Drive
- Permanent space for CT, X-ray and ultrasound, replacing the temporary mobile units that handle those scans now
"I can only imagine that it helps tremendously. As they say, every minute counts with trying to save a life," Eufaula City Manager Jacob Foos told KJRH. "And having (Saint Francis) there is a major benefit to our community."
No completion date for the new rooms or the permanent imaging space has been announced. On Monday, October 19, Saint Francis held a blessing ceremony at the ER and Warren Clinic under the banner "Restoring the Pulse," which the Eufaula Indian Journal covered as the $3 million expansion moved forward.
Two addresses on Hospital Drive
The 24-hour building is not the only Saint Francis address on the street. Residents setting up regular care in town will deal with two locations with very different hours:
- Saint Francis Eufaula, 5 Hospital Drive. This is the emergency department. The Saint Francis location page lists it as open 24 hours a day, every day, with a main number of 918-490-7170.
- Warren Clinic – Eufaula, 17 Hospital Drive. This is adult primary care and internal medicine. The Warren Clinic page lists hours of Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., closed weekends, at 918-618-4085.
Both pages are live listings, so check them for current hours before you go. The clinic keeps weekday office hours. The emergency department at number 5 stays open after 7 p.m., the hour that set the limits of care in Eufaula from 2016 until this July.
Katie Chapman has lived in Carlton Landing since 2014, and the questions that come up most when people consider life on Lake Eufaula tend to be practical ones, like how far it is to care at 2 a.m. If you want a local read on what everyday life looks like around Eufaula as projects like this expansion take shape, Carlton Landing Homes is glad to talk it through. Contact Us.
