Hospital Says the Rest Will Be Easy: Forsyth Medical Now to Talk to State About Project in Kernersville
By Wesley Young, Winston-Salem Journal, N.C.
Jun. 13–KERNERSVILLE
Forsyth Medical Center officials said yesterday that they believe they can easily overcome objections that state regulators made last fall to their proposed hospital in Kernersville now that High Point Regional Health System has dropped its opposition.
Novant Health Inc., the parent company of Forsyth Medical Center, plans to immediately begin discussions with regulators to move the project forward, said Jo Haubenreiser, the executive director of post-acute services at the medical center. Novant wants to build a 50-bed hospital in Kernersville that would be called Forsyth Medical Center Kernersville.
Novant also has to decide on a site for a hospital. High Point Regional Health System had objected to the original site proposed on N.C. 66 south near Bishop McGuinness Catholic High School. Haubenreiser said that Novant still considers that site “ideal,” but, she said, she could not confirm that the hospital would be built there.
The mayor of Kernersville, Curtis Swisher, said he believes that the hospital will be built somewhere between Interstate 40 and Business 40 along N.C. 66, an idea based, he said, on what Novant officials have been saying about acceptable sites. A site in that area would be farther from High Point and north of Novant’s original site.
Haubenreiser would say only that the hospital must be built in an area that isn’t too cramped for emergency vehicles and in a place with adequate land and water and sewer service.
“Clearly the corridor between Business 40 and Bypass 40 is ideal because it has all those structures,” she said.
Before any bricks can be laid, Novant has to persuade the N.C. Division of Facility Services that a 50-bed hospital in Kernersville is needed.
In denying Novant’s application last October, state regulators said that it is “unlikely” that a Kernersville hospital would draw as many patients from outside its core service area as Novant claimed. Novant said that its Huntersville hospital drew 20 percent of its patients from outside its main service area and suggested that Kernersville would do likewise. State officials, however, said that Novant didn’t adequately back up the claim and cast doubts on the projections.
“We believe we need to go back and clarify how we are going to fill 50 beds,” Haubenreiser said, adding that hospital officials are confident the state’s objections will be overcome.
Getting High Point Regional to drop its objection was important for Novant because it takes the matter out of official hearings and lets Novant hold direct talks with regulators in the facility-services division, Haubenreiser said.
It also lets Novant deal with the questions the state raised about the application, she said.
High Point Regional had filed a motion supporting the state’s rejection of a Kernersville hospital. It said that its objections had to do with the location and not the idea of Kernersville having a hospital.
Eric Fletcher, speaking for High Point Regional, issued a statement confirming that it had withdrawn its motion.
“We remain supportive of Kernersville’s efforts to build the hospital,” Fletcher said.
— Wesley Young can be reached at 992-0067 or at wyoung@wsjournal.com.
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