Good news for health care
Published 8:42 pm Monday, April 20, 2015
Suffolk’s thriving medical community continues to grow, and nowhere is the growth more evident than in the Harbour View community in the northern part of the city.
The Harbour View development, which came into being following the completion of I-664 and the Monitor-Merrimac Bridge Tunnel, is nearly built out, and visitors to the area will find a huge variety of medical and dental service providers making their home there.
Among the largest footprints are made by facilities built by two of Hampton Roads’ biggest health care providers, Sentara and Bon Secours. Both systems offer emergency medical treatment in large facilities, the former on Bridge Road and the latter adjacent to Harbour View Boulevard. And both offer a variety of ancillary services in those facilities and throughout the area, as well.
Bon Secours is preparing to ramp up its offerings in the community, following the purchase of parcels adjacent to its Bon Secours Health Center at Harbour View, though hospital officials have been reticent about sharing their exact plans.
“As we continue to see growth in the Northern Suffolk corridor, we are preparing to best meet the growing community needs for health care,” Bon Secours spokeswoman Lynne Zultanky said via email when asked about plans for the parcels. “In doing so, we are ensuring that we have additional room for expansion of our services on the Bon Secours campus. At this point, we don’t have any additional details to release.”
Meanwhile, Bon Secours is also moving forward with its plan for Bon Secours Cancer Institute on 13 acres between its current 172,000-square foot Harbour View campus and the Meridian apartment complex.
“We are currently finalizing our design,” Zultanky wrote. “Our desire is to ensure that we develop a cancer institute that considers the best way to deliver cancer care in the future and ensure that we have options for expansion of this service.”
Groundbreaking is anticipated in summer 2015 with the new facility operational by fall 2016, according to Zultanky.
Combined with the excellent offerings in and around Sentara Obici Hospital on Godwin Boulevard — which now include a satellite location of the well-respected Strelitz Diabetes Center of Western Tidewater, operated by Eastern Virginia Medical School — the new facilities on the way from Bon Secours will put Suffolk one step closer to being a community where citizens’ medical needs can be met right at home, without a trip through the tunnels and with full confidence in quality of care.
That’s good news, no matter where you live in the city.