City progresses in building plans for new hospital

The city of Oxford, Lafayette County and the Baptist Memorial Hospital-North Mississippi reached an understanding, which will allow the hospital to buy out its lease, giving them ownership of the current hospital building.

The memorandum is more formal than a verbal understanding, but more negotiations remain before any legal documents will be signed.

By purchasing the land, the hospital will be able to select a new piece of land to construct a new hospital. Because it has been leasing the land, the hospital has been incapable of renovating and expanding.    

The buy-out has been negotiated for the past 18 months. The Oxford Board of Alderman reached their decision one week after the Lafayette County Board of Supervisors approved the negotiation.

“This will mean a tremendous economic boom for the community,” administrator and CEO of Baptist Memorial Hospital-North Mississippi Don Hutson said.

The next step will be to finalize the contract for the buy-out of the lease. 

“All sides have done their due diligence and asked the important questions, so that as we move forward in this process everybody can be comfortable with the fact that this is the best decision for this community and for this region,” Hutson said.

After the legal documents are signed, the hospital will then start the process of selecting a new property, as well as applying to the state for a Certificate of Need. 

Hutson said the hospital has a projected time line, with a plan to break ground on construction in the summer of 2012. If that is successful, they hope to have a new medical facility by 2015. 

“The ability to have a new hospital in this area will greatly enhance our ability to serve as regional referral center in North Mississippi, and it will greatly assist in our ability to attract and recruit new physicians across a wide number of specialties to this area,” Hutson said.