Williamson County celebrates its first ever SICU

WILLIAMSON COUNTY, Texas - The celebration of a new Surgical Intensive Care Unit in Williamson County was long in the making.

"I'm in my happy place," said Dr. Ankur Bhakta, who leads the team at the Nancy Crouse & Craig McCurdy Surgical Intensive Care Unit. "To be able to do this. To be able to provide the care that we do. To be able to say this is our ICU, this is a Surgical ICU, to me, it takes my breath- I can’t even find the words to describe it because it is something that I have been working towards for so long."

Opening 16 beds at the SICU at Ascension Seton Williamson costs around $20 million.

Nancy Crouse and Craig McCurdy are two of the donors.

"From that time on, we just felt heartfelt, helping everything here grow and now this is a culmination of many years," said Craig McCurdy.

Their donation is in memory of their son Ben McCurdy, who died at 20 from cancer.

"It was so needed here, and that’s what they wanted to do, the hospital wanted to do," said Nancy Crouse. "We thought it would be an excellent way, everything we do for charity is in memory of Ben."

Although Ben never walked the halls of Seton Williamson, they hope their donation to the Surgical ICU will give other families a chance to leave the hospital with their loved ones.

"This affords us the ability to focus on complex surgical patients and complex trauma patients in a way that we couldn't do before in a mixed environment," said Andrew Gannan, the president of Ascension Seton Williamson.

Ascension Seton said patients receiving specialized care in Surgical ICUs often have shorter hospital stays.

"Unfortunately, there are times when patients need trauma care and complex surgical care, and so we wanted to make sure we provided a spot where they could have excellent and exceptional care," said Gannan.

Some of the first patients arrived on August 1.