Critics of a plan to build a major new hospital along the Dulles Greenway in Loudoun County are gathering today to blast the plan as poorlydesigned, horribly located and unworthy of consideration.
“You’re literally force-fitting it into the community,” said Bruce Biggs, a Broadlands resident. “After these homes popped up, this for-profit, industrial mammoth came in and saw dollar signs in their eyes.”
Hospital supporters are fighting back, trying to cast the proposed Broadlands Regional Medical Center as an essential addition to an underserved, fast-growing market.
“I wish it was already built,” said Tim Butka, another Broadlands resident. “I think there’s definitely the need for it in the community and we need the competition.”
The Loudoun County Board of Supervisors rejected the proposal in 2005, but it was revived after voters swept four of those board members out of office.
Inova Lansdowne Hospital, one of the county’s economic engines, wants to build a second facility along the Route 50 Corridor in southeastern Loudoun County. That plan would be jeopardized if rival HCA Virginia is allowed to build along the Dulles Greenway.
Critics say the hospital was defeated in 2005 because it is a terrible fit for the nearby Broadlands neighborhood and is less than five miles, from the existing hospital.
A national nursing organization that contends HCA does not hire enough nurses is joining the protest effort.
“If they are going to expand, they should expand in a location where the community wants it and not just bulldoze the community’s wishes,” said Kathy McGregor, a Tennessee nurse and organizer of the National Nurses Organizing Committee.
Supporters contend the hospital would be an economic boon with a central location for a growing region without enough hospital beds.
“It’s grossly underserved in Loudoun,” said Margaret Lewis, president of HCA’s Capital Division. “Fifty percent of the residents who live in Loudoun leave Loudoun for their health care.”
