Phoebe Putney Hospital won’t challenge CON for Lee County hospital once it’s filed

ALBANY — Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital will adhere to a formal request from the state for a response regarding a Certificate of Need for a new hospital in Lee County, but will not object to or comment on the CON application otherwise, officials with the Albany hospital said this week.

A CON application for the proposed Lee County hospital has not yet been filed.

Phoebe officials released a statement this week about the hospital’s position on the proposed 50-bed hospital that has been planned for south Lee County at the site of the Grand Island Golf Club.

Lee County officials announced in June plans to construct a $50 million hospital, which is to be built by Freese Johnson LLC of Marietta. The announcement surprised many in the Albany area, including officials at Phoebe.

In their statement this week, Phoebe officials said they had received numerous inquiries about how the project in which Lee County is to contribute land and financial support to investors for the development of a hospital “would affect the delivery of health care in the region, the expected impact on Phoebe as a safety net hospital and as a teaching hospital, and the potential increased impact on the taxpayers in Lee County with respect to the provision of indigent and charity care currently provided to Lee County residents by Phoebe.”

The inquiries, Phoebe officials said, have come from media, business leaders, Dougherty and Lee County government officials and state elected officials “concerned about the fragile state of health care in Georgia’s most economically challenged region.”

“As one of the largest employers and the leading provider of comprehensive health care and physician education in the region, Phoebe has always felt a strong obligation to respond fully and openly to such inquiries and to work with government and business on issues impacting public health and well-being,” the statement said. “However, in this matter Phoebe must be guided by its agreement with the Federal Trade Commission arising out of the Hospital Authority (of Albany-Dougherty County)’s purchase of the former Palmyra Park Hospital.”

That agreement with the federal agency precludes Phoebe from challenging the CON application.

“While there has been no application for a Certificate of Need in connection with a general acute care hospital in Lee County, should one be filed Phoebe is permitted to and will respond fully to a formal request from the Georgia Department of Community Health for information relevant to such an application,” the statement said. “Phoebe will not otherwise file any objections or comment to a CON application for a Lee County general acute care hospital. It is certainly fair and appropriate to ask other stakeholders and health care experts, and Lee County officials, how this project will be designed to minimize harm to safety net and teaching hospitals, avoid costly duplication of services, and provide for an equitable share of indigent care as contemplated by Georgia’s health planning regulations.

“For well over a hundred years Phoebe has been here, providing the region with the most advanced medical technology and the most highly trained health care providers. Phoebe values greatly its relationship with the people of southwest Georgia and remains dedicated to its mission to provide a full range of health and wellness services to all residents, regardless of their financial circumstances, and to educate the physicians and nurses needed to fulfill this mission.”