Medical facilities two miles apart in Suffolk is not too much care, officials say

SUFFOLK

At the ribbon-cutting ceremony Thursday for the new Sentara BelleHarbour medical complex, officials lauded the arrival of a new medical facility for the residents of growing northern Suffolk.

But as the crow flies, there's another medical complex/emergency department just over the trees surrounding the $24 million BelleHarbour campus. By car, head down Bridge Road and hang a quick left and you're at Bon Secours Health Center at Harbour View. MapQuest puts the distance between the two at 1.77 miles - a three-minute drive.

A couple of years ago, northern Suffolk and Western Tidewater residents who needed emergency care would have had to travel several miles to Bon Secours Maryview Medical Center in Portsmouth or Sentara Obici Hospital near downtown Suffolk, but now they've got two options within a couple of miles of each other.

Is this a good thing? Sure, say officials for both health systems.

"It offers choice to people who live here, and we're very much in favor of that," said Barbara Lynch, vice president for ambulatory services at Bon Secours' Harbour View campus, which started as an outpatient surgery and imaging center in 1999 and has expanded several times since.

"We consider Harbour View as a crown jewel for Bon Secours," said Kurt Hofelich, vice president for ambulatory services for Sentara Healthcare, the region's largest health system. "We're proud to be here with them."

Beneath the gracious responses is a fierce competition for the health care market in South Hampton Roads between Sentara and Bon Secours.

In the last couple of years, the two health systems also have opened competing medical complexes about three miles from each other in the Princess Anne area of Virginia Beach.

Both health systems sought state approval to build hospitals at their Virginia Beach sites, and Bon Secours also applied for a small hospital at the Harbour View site.

In March, Sentara got its permission from the state health commissioner and Bon Secours was denied.

Bon Secours appealed the decisions, including ones allowing Sentara both to build in Virginia Beach and to expand Obici by 30 beds.

Free-standing emergency departments - unlike hospitals, new operating rooms or equipment such as MRI or CT scan machines - do not need state approval to be built, said Erik Bodin, director of the state's certificate of public need division for the Virginia Department of Health.

Ditto for medical office buildings - the classification for the $24 million BelleHarbour, which includes physicians offices and physical therapy and sleep centers.

The only certificate of public need Sentara had to acquire for BelleHarbour - which operates under Obici's hospital license - was to relocate MRI and CT machines, Hofelich said.

Both Sentara and Bon Secours say there is more than enough business to go around. Both plan to expand.

According to Sentara estimates, about 31,000 patients will pass through BelleHarbour's emergency department - which opens Monday at 7 a.m. - in its first year.

In the Harbour View ER, which opened in March 2007 under Maryview's license, about 25,000 patients were treated in its first year.

Lynch said it averages about 85 patients a day, with more than 100 typically on each weekend day.

"It's quite a bit more than we were expecting," Lynch said, adding that she doesn't expect that to change much with BelleHarbour's opening.

Hofelich said that for years before its 2006 merger with Sentara, Obici had wanted to expand into booming northern Suffolk.

He said the company was persuaded to pick that particular spot rather than one farther away from Bon Secours after talks with the land's owner, Temple Beth El.

Phillip McNeil, a rabbi at Temple Beth El, said a medical facility was the perfect use for the land, which was originally purchased more than a century ago by a former slave who founded the congregation.

Over the years, Temple Beth El has amassed more than 350 acres and years ago developed a master plan to develop the land, said McNeil, who is chairman of its redevelopment committee.

The plan originally called for a shopping center on the 20 acres where BelleHarbour is.

McNeil said he is now glad that there is instead a "beacon of healing" across the street from the temple. "The Lord didn't want a shopping center here," he said.

McNeil said he is an admirer of the Bon Secours Harbour View health center as well.

"As far as I'm concerned, it's not a competition," McNeil said. "It's another additional opportunity for people here to get health care."

Nancy Young, (757) 446-2947, nancy.young@pilotonline.com