BLUFFTON — Beaufort Memorial Hospital's more than six-year effort to open a small facility in Bluffton has ceased. The Lowcountry community medical provider folded its plans to build a 20-bed acute-care hospital, withdrawing the certification state license that it initially received in 2018, and moving to dismiss the lawsuit that kept it from breaking ground. Building the facility was projected to cost nearly $45 million.
Beaufort Memorial CEO Russell Baxley said the organization plans to build a medical office building in its place with the ability to add a freestanding emergency department, ambulatory surgery center and other services down the road. He said the community hospital wanted to start construction in January and that continuing to fight the lawsuit would have caused an unwanted delay. Emergency department plans continue Lowcountry David vs.
Goliath health care battle Beaufort Memorial announced the joint venture with Medical University of South Carolina in 2018. State health department officials approved the plans in July 2018 and awarded the group a Certificate of Need for the project. This state certification process is designed to keep expenses down and control health services available in an area.
MUSC Health eventually stepped away from the project to make the certification process smoother, according to the public hospital's CEO Patrick Cawley. The planned facility received opposition from hospitals in Hilton Head and Hardeeville, which were then owned by Tenet Health. Candler Hospital in Savannah also challenged the certification.
Both parties raised questions about the facility's financial feasibility and the need for a hospital in the area. In October 2018, they appealed the state health department's decision in administrative law court. A change to state law altered the complexion of the litigation.
Gov. Henry McMaster signed a bill in May 2023 that repealed the hospital certification requirement. That mandate will sunset by 2027.
A new hospital in Bluffton was announced 6 years ago. Here's why construction hasn't started. The legislation prompted Candler to drop its legal challenge in September 2023.
However, the S.C. facilities held their ground , through the December trial and February purchase by North Carolina-based nonprofit giant Novant Health.
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Beaufort Memorial withdrew its certificate of need for the Bluffton facility Sept. 10. Administrative Law Judge S.
Phillip Lenski signed an order dismissing the litigation following a jointly proposed motion from the community hospital, the Novant-owned competing facilities and the state health department. Beaufort Memorial Hospital President and CEO Russell Baxley speaks during a ceremony marking the expansion of the hospital’s Surgical Pavilion in Beaufort on Sept. 26, 2023.
The hospital recently scrapped plans to build a 20-bed, acute care hospital in Bluffton. Baxley said the new plans don't fit the need he originally viewed in the Lowcountry community. The state health department's 2024 medical facilities plan said Beaufort County currently has 11 more staffed hospital beds than it needs, but the population in the area has grown faster than the agency's projections.
In 2018, when the community hospital proposed the project, the state said the Lowcountry county needed 33 additional beds. A Novant spokesperson did not answer a question about whether more hospital beds are needed for patients in the area, saying that the nonprofit would share more about its vision for the community in the coming weeks. Parents called Hilton Head Island teacher a 'groomer.
' She's suing for defamation. Representatives fro m the nonprofit discussed its proposal to open a freestanding emergency department at a Bluffton development meeting in July. Novant plans to build the $10.
7 million facility just a mile away from the impending Beaufort Memorial location, according to documents submitted to the state health department and the town's development staff. To finance the medical office project, Beaufort Memorial plans rely on bonds worth up to $120 million. Baxley said lower borrowing rates made the bonds a better option than relying on a developer.
The proposed bonds passed a second County Council reading Sept. 9. County officials needed to approve hospital revenues used to secure the notes.
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