Baptist Memorial to relocate from South Lamar

Baptist Memorial Hospital-North Mississippi announced it will be seeking a new location at a public meeting held in the Oxford Conference Center on Monday.

The meeting was held between officials of Baptist Memorial Hospital, Oxford’s Board of Alderman and Lafayette County Board of Supervisors.

Although there is no set location or final construction date for the hospital, Don Hutson, Administrator and CEO of Baptist Memorial Hospital-North Mississippi, projects the new Baptist Memorial Hospital-North Mississippi to begin construction in 2012 and hopes to occupy the new facility by summer of 2015.

Officials announced the hospital will be building a $300 million state-of-the-art regional referral facility.

“We believe that having a state-of-the-art facility will help us as we expand, grow and recruit to this area,” Don Hutson, Administrator and CEO of Baptist Memorial Hospital-North Mississippi, said.

The location site of the new hospital is still undetermined. There are still stages of the negotiating process that need to be worked out before any movement on the project can be done.

“First, Baptist has to purchase the lease from the city and county before anything is done, then there is a design stage which leads to construction,” Hutson said.

Baptist Memorial is expanding to a different location because of seismic codes, which put restrictions on further building to the current hospital.

“This hospital is landlocked on 13 acres, we can’t build up,” Hutson said.

Due to the seismic codes, Baptist Memorial is looking to relocate to a facility that will give them enough space to perform and give them the best possible results.

“We have four major departments that are experiencing growth and we need to move to 60 to 100 acres of space that will best meet our needs,” Hutson said.

As far as hospital visitors are concerned, costly changes will not be an issue due to the brand new state-of-the-art facility.

“The bulk of our payers are fixed payers that are on Medicare that are on a predetermined negotiated rate,” Hutson said.

According to Hutson, the current site of the Baptist Memorial Hospital located off South Lamar will remain put.

However, Baptist Memorial will seek an organization to occupy the building and put it to good use.

“The county is very excited of having a new hospital. This has been our concern for a long time. We need the best health care for the citizens of this county,” Joseph Johnson, Lafayette County Administrator, said.

Residents of the Oxford community show positive response and are excited to hear that there is a new hospital entering the city in the near future.

“I think it’s great they’re building a new hospital. It will give pre-med and nursing students a good opportunity to practice here around Oxford,” Stephen Bailey, Ole Miss graduate and current resident of Oxford, said.