In filing with the state, HCA offers the first detailed look at its proposed Spotsylvania Regional Medical Center.

HCA says that the Fredericksburg area will need additional hospital beds by next year and could fill a new hospital within a decade after one opens.

The Nashville-based company argued in its latest filing with the state Health Department that the region is "too large and growing too rapidly to have only one hospital." Mary Washington Hospital has served the region for more than 100 years.

HCA predicts that this "explosive" population growth will cause another shortage of hospital beds by 2007 and will overwhelm any new hospital within seven years of its opening.

HCA made these arguments Monday in support of its application to build a hospital in Spotsylvania County. Its mailing to state health authorities in Richmond also offers the first detailed look at its Spotsylvania Regional Medical Center, proposed for a 75-acre parcel off Interstate 95 in the Massaponax area.

HCA says its five-story facility will have 126 beds and cost about $152 million. It would be the first new HCA hospital in Virginia in decades, according to the filing.

The company operates 11 other hospitals in Virginia and 190 hospitals in the United States and abroad.

HCA also argues that it will bring "needed choice and competition" to the local health-care market. And, since it's a for-profit corporation, it will pay taxes, the filing says.

HCA's proposal is one of two applications for new hospitals now pending with the state. MediCorp Health System, a Fredericksburg not-for-profit corporation, which operates Mary Washington Hospital, has proposed a new hospital for the courthouse area of Stafford County. It filed detailed plans with the state last month.

At 100 beds and four stories, MediCorp's Stafford Hospital Center would be smaller than HCA's hospital. MediCorp expects to spend about $158 million on its project.

Each company envisions a full-service complex with an emergency room, imaging section, cardiac lab, cancer treatment, laboratory, intensive-care unit, operating rooms, labor-and-delivery area and medical office building.

The two companies say they could have their hospitals open in 2009. The two also agree on the need for a new hospital.

HCA points out that with nearly 300,000 people, the Fredericksburg region is the fastest growing in Virginia and the most populous with only one hospital.

This growth will lead to another bed shortage by next year, according to HCA's filing.

Mary Washington experienced a bed shortage in 2003, prior to the opening of a 94-bed addition. The addition increased capacity at Mary Washington to 412 beds.

HCA predicts that Mary Washington will again experience a shortage of beds by next year. By 2016, it says, the region will need up to 252 new beds, or more than what would be contained in both proposed hospitals.

MediCorp's predictions are similar. It expects a bed crunch to reappear next year. It believes that the area will need up to 216 new beds by 2015.

Health Department officials will study the applications and arrive at their own conclusions sometime this summer. They could reject both applications, approve both or approve one. The state reviews major health-care expenditures as part of its "certificate of public need" process. The review is intended to hold down health-care costs.

Public input will begin next month with a hearing sponsored by the Rappahannock Health Advisory Council, a citizen group that advises the health commissioner. Its session will be held on Tuesday, March 7, at 5 p.m. at Dodd Auditorium at the University of Mary Washington.

Date published: 2/8/2006

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