Sentara Halifax plans new, smaller hospital

Sentara Halifax Regional Hospital in South Boston is investing $70 million to construct a new acute care hospital to replace its aging predecessor, with completion set for late 2025 or early 2026.

The new hospital will be about a third the size of the existing 300,000-square-foot facility, which is licensed for 192 beds. Sentara Health determined a replacement was more cost-effective than spending an estimated $180 million needed to renovate the older building.

The facility has been the subject of local speculation, with a Town Council member in February publishing an open letter alleging that Sentara planned to replace the hospital with a walk-in clinic.

The reality, says Dr. James Priest, the hospital’s chief medical officer, is that “the current hospital is 70 years old and will not sustain us going into the future, and unfortunately is failing us now from a facilities perspective.”

Just replacing systems like the hospital’s power plant and HVAC systems would cost $50 million alone, according to Sentara.

“The new hospital will allow us the opportunity to align the space for the services needed and modernize our building,” Priest says.

The hospital’s patient volume has decreased in recent years due to a shrinking and aging local population, Sentara says. The rural facility has also faced physician recruitment and retention challenges.

The new hospital will include inpatient medical and surgical beds, a cardiac catheterization suite, an emergency department, an intensive care unit, imaging services, a surgical suite and lab, among other departments. It will eliminate childbirth services due to a significant decrease in area births in recent years. 

Sentara has not confirmed how many beds will be at the new hospital, which is still in the design phase. 

“We’re really hoping to have a more robust outpatient service program,” says Brian Zwoyer, the hospital’s president. “As we move into the future, we really want to figure out how do we provide the same services that we’re providing, but at an easier, more efficient level of care.”

Zwoyer adds, “It is the first step in allowing us to really take a look at our campus and figure out how do we push care out into the community, because ultimately within the next five to 10 years, we would love to be able to have a health care campus versus just a hospital.”