Two elected officials in Lexington County, South Carolina – and a candidate for the SC General Assembly – are challenging the county’s largest health care provider, arguing that it is expanding into a neighboring county without first caring for its own citizens.
West Columbia, SC councilor Mike Green, Pelion, councilor of SC Larry Sossamon and Chris Smith – a Republican candidate for SC Senate District 26 (.pdf) – sent a joint letter earlier this week criticizing the Lexington Medical Center (LMC).
According to them, the hospital system is misleading residents in rural southwestern parts of the county to build new facilities in the northeastern suburban part of neighboring Richland County.
Take a look …
(Click to view)
(Via: Provided)
“Why is Lexington Medical ignoring us to provide healthcare in the wealthiest part of Richland County?” the correspondence asked. “We believe that OUR hospital should serve the United States, as it has generated more than a billion dollars in revenue over the past five years!
The mailer linked readers to a Facebook page titled “Where’s My LMC?”
On that page, the group argues that local school districts and SC Department of Transportation (SCDOT) employees are planning for growth in Gilbert, Pelion and White Knoll, SC – meaning that additional health infrastructure is needed.
“If the school district and SCDOT are preparing to grow, why isn’t LMC doing more than the few offices it has on our side of the county?” the page authors want to know.
Earlier this year, the SC Department of Health and Environmental Control (SCDHEC) granted Lexington Medical permission to build a new “outpatient surgery center” in Richland County, South Carolina – part of a proposed expansion of its practice “ LMC Northeast ”.
This facility will be located at 3016 Longtown Commons Drive, north of Killian, SC, which is in the heart of the northeast suburbs of Columbia, SC.
As our regular readers are well aware, tensions between several hospitals in the Midlands area have increased in recent months – particularly disputes between Lexington Medical Center and Prisma Health, which operates several hospitals in Richland County.
We predicted in April that a “new front” was about to open in connection with this ongoing battle … and it certainly seems so.
Stay tuned … we plan to keep our readers informed about this ongoing debate as it starts to heat up over the next summer months …
-FITSNews
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