Hospital Planned for Loop 820 and Texas 199
By Maria M. Perotin, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas
Apr. 23–Texas Health Resources intends to build a $100 million hospital in the Lake Worth area, with plans for roughly 100 inpatient beds and medical services including obstetrics.
The Arlington-based nonprofit hospital chain hopes to close within a few months on a parcel at Loop 820 and Texas 199, said Winjie Tang Miao, president of the company’s Harris Methodist Northwest Hospital in Azle.
The new hospital is expected to open in three to five years, at which point the Azle hospital eight miles away would be converted to a largely outpatient facility, Tang Miao said Tuesday.
“We are planning for the future,” she said. “That is our goal — to have a full-service hospital in that area so that the people who live in that community can get healthcare in that community.”
About the proposed hospital: Administrators are planning for 100 beds, although the facility would probably have fewer beds when it opens. Although administrators haven’t made any decisions about medical services, they’re thinking about offering general surgery, diagnostic imaging, an intensive-care unit and an emergency department, as well as delivery rooms and space for medical offices.
Changes for Azle site: The Azle hospital has 31 beds, an outpatient rehabilitation unit, an ER, two operating rooms and two endoscopy suites that are used mainly for gastrointestinal treatments.
Tang Miao said many of those services would continue, although the hospital would probably give up most overnight care. It may add inpatient rehabilitation care, however.
The hospital is more than 50 years old, and the property “just wasn’t big enough” for the expansion that Texas Health has in mind, Tang Miao said.
About the region: Executives hope that the new hospital will draw patients from all over fast-growing northwest Tarrant County — including residents of Lake Worth, Saginaw, Azle and Springtown and Parker County. They believe that the new hospital will be more accessible for many patients than the current one because they won’t have to drive around Eagle Mountain Lake to get there.
Tang Miao noted that women in the area now have to travel far from home to give birth. And cancer patients typically drive to Fort Worth for radiation treatment and other routine care.
“Those people are driving an hour round trip every day for six weeks,” she said. “It’s an opportunity to put those services closer to home.”
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