Novant Will Consider Other Sites for Hospital: It Hopes Move Will Lead Officials in High Point to Drop Objections
By Wesley Young, Winston-Salem Journal, N.C.
Mar. 24–KERNERSVILLE
The owner of Forsyth Medical Center is willing to consider a different site for a new hospital in Kernersville if that would cause High Point Regional Health System to drop its objections to it.
Novant Health Inc., the owner of Forsyth Medical Center, has proposed building a 50-bed hospital off N.C. 66 south of Interstate 40. Officials at High Point Regional Health System say that it’s too close to their hospital and would make them lose patients and revenue.
High Point Regional recently sent Novant a list of other sites to consider. Novant will look at the sites but insists that the hospital has to be built where it will be “convenient and most accessible to the citizens of Kernersville,” said Freda Springs, speaking for Novant. “They have to be sites for a hospital that make sense,” she said. “It is not to protect another hospital in another county from competition.”
State regulators turned down Novant’s application to build the new hospital last October. The state concluded that Novant overestimated the number of people who would use the hospital and that it had other flaws in its application. Novant appealed the state’s decision, and High Point Regional joined in support of the state.
Novant officials say that their appeal would move a lot faster if High Point Regional dropped its objections to the new hospital. They’ve been encouraging supporters to write letters to newspapers and High Point Regional officials to get them to do just that.
High Point Regional supports Forsyth’s effort to build the new hospital if it is in a “better location,” said Eric Fletcher, speaking for High Point Regional. That means “locating the hospital more centrally in Kernersville and in Forsyth County and serving the residents of Kernersville and Forsyth County,” he said.
Kernersville residents formed the Save the Kernersville Hospital Committee to support building a new hospital. After High Point Regional asked Novant to look for a new site, the committee came up with two suggestions and passed the information on to High Point Regional, Springs said. High Point Regional never responded to the committee, she said.
John Wolfe, the chairman of the committee, said he was angered to learn that High Point Regional officials decided to look for sites after Novant had already agreed to consider sites “north of I-40.”
“We have tried to offer something reasonable,” Wolfe said. “They will not withdraw their opposition. They are depriving the citizens from having a hospital.”
–Wesley Young can be reached at 992-0067 or at wyoung@wsjournal.com.
—–
Copyright (c) 2007, Winston-Salem Journal, N.C.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.