Hospitals silent on Franklin relocation

RALEIGH -- Three hospitals that were initially opposed to a Franklin County hospital's move from the center of the county to its southwest edge remained silent on the hospital's new partnership with Rex Healthcare to relocate.

Comments filed with the state on Franklin Regional Medical Center's certificate of need application were released late last week. But WakeMed, Granville Medical Center and Maria Parham Medical Center in Henderson apparently had nothing to say on the hospital's second bid in a year to move from Louisburg to Youngsville.

In November, Franklin Regional and Rex partnered for a bid to build a $103.9 million hospital in the growing southwestern corner of Franklin County, about two miles from the Wake County line. Rex is owned by UNC Health Care, the state-backed hospital system in Chapel Hill.

The application to move the hospital is similar to a February 2007 application, in which Franklin Regional alone proposed a similar move. The town of Louisburg, WakeMed, Granville Medical and Maria Parham submitted letters in opposition to that move, claiming the relocation would leave poor and elderly users of the hospital 16 more miles away from the Louisburg location.

WakeMed later withdrew its opposition before the state considered the first application. Within a week, Franklin Regional pulled its opposition to a North Raleigh WakeMed project.

In November, Stan Taylor, WakeMed's vice president of corporate planning, had said he was "astonished that a state hospital like UNC would get involved in moving a resource from a poor community to a rich suburb."

WakeMed, however, submitted no comments on the new application. Deb Laughery, a WakeMed spokeswoman, said: "We did not submit any comments because we don't have any."

Louisburg officials' largest issue of contention was relocation of the emergency room to Youngsville without leaving one in the current location, according to comments filed with the state.

The Rex and Franklin Regional agreement called for adding an urgent care center in Louisburg, staffed 15 hours on weekdays and 12 on the weekends.

Louisburg officials wrote in the comments that the compromise wasn't enough to satisfy the 30,000 residents it claims the hospital would leave behind.

"We're not going to diminish access to care," Bonnie Little, a Franklin Regional spokeswoman, said Sunday. "Our mission is to provide additional access to care."

Officials at Granville Medical Center and Maria Parham Medical Center could not be reached over the weekend for comment.