This morning the state granted approval to plans for a new HCA hospital in Spring Hill.
In a hearing before the Health Services and Development Agency supporters argued that Spring Hill is growing at a fast enough rate that it needs its own 56 bed hospital. But the proposal met stiff opposition from surrounding communities worried that a new facility would drain patients and resources from nearby Williamson Medical Center in Franklin and Maury Regional Hospital in Columbia.
Attorney Dan Elrond represented Maury Regional. He questioned the statistics used to support the application.
“They speculate about population that’s beyond the bounds of reason, they speculate about physicians who will be on staff, they speculate that citizens will actually have their health care improve if they drive 6 or 7 minutes less to a hospital, and they speculate that a 56 bed hospital will be where they need to go if they have a serious emergency.”
But members of the agency’s board disagreed. Assuming even the most conservative growth projections, Vice-chair Dr. Gene Caldwell said more beds would certainly be needed in the area by 2010. And he said a new basic-care facility would actually help the existing hospitals.
If this hospital is a community-based hospital, attracting primary care physicians to live and practice in the area, it will be a feeder hospital to the other two hospitals that already have the work force to take care of the specialists. It will be an orderly development of health care for a fast-growing community that’s even hard to imagine if you live in a community that’s not growing.”
The certificate of need was granted by a vote of seven to one.
A spokesperson for Williamson County Medical Center says they will consider filing an appeal.
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