Executives overseeing 347-bed St. John's Regional Medical Center, the Joplin, Mo., hospital hit last Sunday by a tornado, pledged to the community that it will rebuild and unveiled plans for a 60-bed mobile hospital that it expects to be in place by Sunday.

“Our commitment to Joplin remains strong,” Lynn Britton, president and CEO of St. John's parent Mercy Health System, Chesterfield, Mo., said at a news conference, according to a statement on Mercy's website. Structural engineers are going into the battered hospital in Joplin to see whether the nine-story building where five patients and one visitor died in the storm is salvageable.

Longer-term plans are under discussion, and a board meeting is scheduled to be held this week to continue the planning, according to the statement. The new hospital might be built on a different site, according to Mercy. The mobile hospital is expected to offer a full array of services, including emergency, surgery, imaging, laboratory services and inpatient care.

Efforts to assist the 2,800 employees of the hospital continue, with Mercy working through a command center for that purpose. An affiliate of the Missouri Hospital Association, Jefferson City, established Hospital Employee Relief Operation fund to receive and coordinate distribution of donated money for employees of affected hospitals.