Health care

HCA Healthcare’s effort to build its first hospital in Hanover County has been derailed by the state health department. State Health Commissioner Karen Shelton last week denied HCA’s application that sought regulatory approval of a proposed 60-bed, $233.6 million acute-care hospital on Sliding Hill Road off of I-95. Shelton determined the proposed facility was unnecessary… Read more »

The health systems each want to build new centers within a few miles of each other in eastern Hanover outside of the Town of Ashland, while HCA also is plotting a new hospital in the same area.

The expansion will make way for a new linear accelerator, a machine that’s used to treat cancer by beaming radiation at cancerous tumors.

The health system was gifted the 1,500-acre rural estate in Amherst County from the late Frank Eck, a longtime Richmond attorney whose sister, Sister Pat Eck, was a member of the Bon Secours board of directors.

Wednesday’s hearing, which is a regular feature of the state’s approval process for new medical facilities, came in the wake of a state health department staff report released in April that recommended denial of HCA’s proposal.

The health system is making fresh moves toward an expansion of its St. Francis Medical Center campus that has been on the drawing board for several years.