BMC North Adds Urologic, Gynecologic Surgeries

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Berkshire Health Systems has announced a further expansion of outpatient surgical procedures being performed at the Northern Berkshire Campus of Berkshire Medical Center.

Urologic and gynecologic minimally invasive surgery procedures are now being scheduled for the new operating rooms at the former hospital. They join outpatient orthopedic surgery, which started in January of this year.

Urologic surgery is being performed by Drs. Stephen St. Clair and Kevin Killeen, board-certified specialists with Urology Professional Services of BMC. The urologists are scheduling outpatient surgery for anyone from the age of 15 years and older, including scrotal procedures that cannot be performed in an office environment, and prostate biopsies, low risk ureteroscopy for stones, low-risk bladder tumor resection and botox injections in the bladder, among others.

Gynecologic surgery is being performed by Drs. Charles O'Neill, Susan Yates and Kalpesh Patel, who all provide care through Berkshire OB/GYN of BMC's Northern Berkshire office. They are providing minimally invasive loop electrosurgical excision (LEEP), a procedure that can remove abnormal cells or tissue in the cervix and surrounding area. Other minimally invasive gynecologic procedures will be added as the service continues to expand in North Berkshire.

North Adams Hopes to Transform Y Into Community Recreation Center

By Tammy DanielsiBerkshires Staff
05:19AM / Thursday, May 02, 2024

Mayor Jennifer Macksey updates members of the former YMCA on the status of the roof project and plans for reopening. 

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The city has plans to keep the former YMCA as a community center.

 

"The city of North Adams is very committed to having a recreation center not only for our youth but our young at heart," Mayor Jennifer Macksey said to the applause of some 50 or more YMCA members on Wednesday. "So we are really working hard and making sure we can have all those touch points."

 

The fate of the facility attached to Brayton School has been in limbo since the closure of the pool last year because of structural issues and the departure of the Berkshire Family YMCA in March.

 

The mayor said the city will run some programming over the summer until an operator can be found to take over the facility. It will also need a new name. 

 

"The YMCA, as you know, has departed from our facilities and will not return to our facility in the form that we had," she said to the crowd in Council Chambers. "And that's been mostly a decision on their part. The city of North Adams wanted to really keep our relationship with the Y, certainly, but they wanted to be a Y without borders, and we're going a different direction."

 

The pool was closed in March 2023 after the roof failed a structural inspection. Kyle Lamb, owner of Geary Builders, the contractor on the roof project, said the condition of the laminated beams was far worse than expected. 

 

"When we first went into the Y to do an inspection, we certainly found a lot more than we anticipated. The beams were actually rotted themselves on the bottom where they have to sit on the walls structurally," he said. "The beams actually, from the weight of snow and other things, actually crushed themselves eight to 11 inches. They were actually falling apart. ...