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MediCorp Health System and HCA filed formal applications with the state yesterday to build new hospitals in the region Date published: 1/4/2006
The two companies that want to build new hospitals in the region agree on the need for more hospital beds but differ on how to provide them.
MediCorp Health System and HCA Health Services of Virginia Inc. filed applications with the state Health Department yesterday, offering new details about the hospitals they hope to build in Stafford and Spotsylvania counties. Both companies seek to serve one of the fastest-growing regions in the state and the second and third fastest-growing counties. And both believe that the area will need additional hospital beds by the time they could open a new hospital in 2009. Currently, Mary Washington Hospital, the only hospital in the region, has 412 beds. Three-fourths of those beds, on average, were in use during the first 10 months of 2005, according to the MediCorp application. HCA also argues that the region is the one of four planning districts in Virginia with only one hospital, and by far the most populous of the four. "The Spotsylvania Regional Medical Center will introduce choice and competition to Planning District 16," says HCA's application. Both companies cite traffic congestion as one of the justifications for their hospitals. Spotsylvania residents are "increasingly frustrated" with access to Mary Washington Hospital, says HCA's application. "Access to MWH from Stafford County is grossly impaired by traffic congestion, which will worsen in the coming years," according to MediCorp's application. About one-fourth of the patients at Mary Washington live in Stafford. HCA proposes to relieve this congestion with construction of a hospital on 75 acres near the intersection of U.S. 17 and Interstate 95 in the Massaponax area of Spotsylvania County. HCA's application anticipates an eventual extension of the Spotsylvania Parkway, across I-95, to its proposed location. Currently, the parkway ends at U.S. 1. MediCorp has named its hospital the Stafford Hospital Center. It wants to build on a 34-acre parcel on U.S. 1, a quarter-mile south of the Stafford courthouse. The site would be accessible from Courthouse Road. Both companies propose full-service hospitals, including inpatient beds, an intensive care unit, neonatal services, an emergency department, diagnostic imaging, inpatient and outpatient surgery and radiation therapy.
We are going to need as many hospital beds as we can
get for this project, spending a few million more now, may
save some headaches in the future.
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