Broadlands Hospital

If I remember correctly, did Loudoun request more beds and get turned down?

 

In 2000 Inova increased the beds from 84 to 155 as part of their 11Million $ facelift of the Loudoun Campus (as per 2006 Wash Biz Journal article) link below:

http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2006/12/04/story16.html


I can not find anything on the LoCo Govt website that shows the afore mention request "turned down", but I am still searching.

Here is the CPAM - look at pages 27, 2nd paragraph - it states 167 hospital beds:
Loudoun County Govt - CPAM - INOVA

I hope that helps.

 

To the best of my knowledge, Lansdowne doesn't have any more space to expand.

 

I am sorry that you had to wait so long for care at Loudoun Inova. I have been hospitalized many times for emergency care, and waiting is always stressful and scary.

I would like to address a couple of issues with your post however.

It makes sense that with the growth in LoCo, we need more hospital care. I'm not sure how many people, outside of residents of the Broadlands, will find BRMC significantly closer to their homes. Remember, it is only 5.28 miles (12 minute drive) from one campus to the other. Certainly, those Broadlands residents needing medical care will benefit.

NIMBY-ism is why HOA's exist. HOA's rules are set up to "protect" the residents from stuff that, as a community, have determined to be negatives.
Long lawns??? NIMBY
Dog poop on the sidewalk??? NIMBY
Purple houses??? NIMBY
Decks falling down??? NIMBY
Garbage cans outside the garage??? NIMBY (Sorry, I could not resist)

Also, I would not expect a "state of the art" Childrens Center. Unless you are privy to information that I have not seen, I don't think that we will be getting a miniature version of Childrens from DC. I am certain that they will offer great childrens services, but in a very limited way and for the care that is most commonly needed in the area.

I, too, am bothered by the ugliness in this forum. It seems that conjecture by one side of the argument is not met with logic by the opposite, but an attack of "that cannot be true", and insinuations of untruthfulness.

I think that it is time for the HOA to call a meeting of residents and BRMC Developers to go through all the concerns & expectations that residents may have.

If BRMC is truly interested in becoming a member of the community, they should welcome the opportunity to reach out, offer information, and hear the concerns and hopes regarding the proposed hospital.

 

I have extended BRMC the opportunity to have a meeting with residents.
I have extended the opportunity for Stevens Miller, Dulles District Supervisor, to have a meeting with residents.
I am not interested in having an HOA meeting about it if the HOA is not willing to render an opinion on the isue after gathering input.

 

It makes sense if that's where the people are.
I had heard (and have not independently verified) that in 2010, 90% of the population of Loudoun would be closer to BRMC than a Rte 50 hospital.
In 2020, 87% of the population would be closer to BRMC.

Given that the majority of unbuilt approved units in Loudoun are in the Ashburn area and that the vast majority of western Loudoun (which lives along the Rte 7 corridor or north) would be closer to BRMC, these numbers appear to make sense.

You need to look at population density of the county, not the land mass.

 

If you replace BRMC with Lansdowne, wouldn't those stats be almost the same? Has the Brambleton area ever been considered for a hospital site? Just wondering.

 

You mean sorta like your dismissive comment about the partnership with Children's Hospital?

 

You're discounting a whole lot of people who find the Greenway a better route east than Route 7. You are also discounting a whole lot of people to the west who will be using Belmont Ridge Road.

 

Mr. Rogers,

I'm sorry, but I think that I either did not communicate correctly or you misunderstood what I wrote. I did not have to wait at all for emergency room care at Cornwall. I was brought into their emergency department with a broken back along with other injuries, so there was no waiting involved as it was truly an emergency. I received immediate care, but had to wait almost 12 hours for a bed to become available at Lansdowne (where I needed to be treated due to lack of proper facilities at Cornwall). Yes, it was scary because I could have been paralyzed, but it was disconcerting that the Lansdowne campus and, subsequently, Loudoun County does not have a reasonable amount of hospital beds to support the county. Please don't misunderstand, I am not criticizing INOVA at all. I had quality care. We just don't have the facilities to support this increasingly populated county.

As for your response about NIMBY-ism and HOA's, I completely understand your points. We choose to live in a planned development because we like the rules. But I don't really see the correlation between that and the proposed hospital. We, as I'm sure most of Broadlands residents, purchased our home with the knowledge that a hospital was going to be built. In fact, that was one of the reasons why we chose this neighborhood. We love the idea of having good hospital care close by. Don't forget, it is always said that the first hour after a trauma is the most important. Personally, I'd rather have the extra 12 minutes in emergency care than on the road. I'm sure that the Brambleton people would agree as well as people from points west that could take the much faster toll road than route 7 with all of it's traffic.

Why, may I ask, are you so against having a hospital at the corner of Belmont Ridge Road and Broadlands Boulevard? It's a major intersection (or will be) directly off a major highway. Another post mentioned putting it over by Brambleton. That doesn't make sense because there is no major highway running next to Brambleton. Access is key. From what I've read, there will be a nice tree buffer (better than the view of the proposed office buildings that I saw), and the closest house will be 800 feet away. Whoever purchased homes backing to Broadlands Boulevard surely knew that commercial spaces would be built across the street. I'm sure that they had the choice to purchase different lots at the time.

As for the "state of the art" comment, it is my understanding that there will be a separate pediatric emergency department and supporting structure for pediatrics. I'm sure you understand that treating children can be significantly different than treating adults. Even if your conjecture is correct, having the alliance with Children's will be a significant improvement over no specialized pediatric care. I used the term "state of the art" because I believe that I read that somewhere.

As for the ugliness of the forum, you seem to be blaming one side in this. I was commenting about both sides. If you go back and read the comments over the last 4 months, you'll realize that it's ugly on both sides. Remember, as adults, we should rise above our temptations to demean or "one-up" each other and set a good example for our opposition.

I agree with the idea of BRMC addressing homeowners and educating us. I would love to find out more information. I would like to point out, however, that you can access their website and read the "myths versus facts" section to get many answers to the concerns expressed over past months. That's what I did. I found it to be quite informative.

Thank you for your time.

 

Quite frankly, the only "ugliness" on the Forums over the last several weeks was caused by an Inova anti-BRMC group under the name "Concerned Citizens of Broadlands" that collected people's emails without their knowledge or consent, then said they were going to be used to support their anti-BRMC campaign. Yes, this led to some "ugliness" by people who were outraged by this.

 

jgamom:

Well said. I think that you have summarized some really good reasons for the hospital. I hope you heal quickly.

Maybe I am biased, and I have found the pro-hospital side more annoying and combative, although there are some very good reasons on the pro-hospital side:

(GD#$%% wish I could figure out this multi quote!!)

And the other quote about no-one being significantly closer to BMRC than Landsdowne. I would guess that less than 80% of the residents of Loudoun would be no more than 5 miles closer to BMRC than Landsdowne.

I also think that the longer this draws out, the more likely it will be wise to build it. With no other major hospitals in the pipeline, this one looks more and more important as the years go by and the population keeps increasing.

 

I disagree with you. I think that those who were outraged were pretty rational and correct on the whole. But when people started bringing up litigation, I thought that went a little far and was itself "ugly".

 

I was actually referring to some of the responses from April and May. I was also attempting to keep everyone on subject.

 

Yes, that is disturbing. How do we make sure that our names are not on that list? My husband and I would be upset to find out that we were put on it without our permission. Is this the litigation to which Nova Native referred?

 

Yes, you are biased!

 

jgamom,

This is why people were upset and expressed it on the forums. Numerous people who do not oppose the hospital received emails from Donna saying she was counting them as supporters unless they replied to her asking to be removed. Then Donna never replies to requests for removal and the CCoB keep sending email to people who asked to be removed. Some found the message in their spam folders so who knows how many never responded.

There is no way to verify if you are on their list and Donna claims to have no idea how the names they have got on the list in the first place.

No, the litigation that NN refers to is the HCA lawsuit against the previous Board of Supervisors for denying their special exception application. Not sure how you characterize that as ugly Nova Native? Its business. The BOS approved more than 80 such applications in their 4 years and the ONLY one which was denied was HCA's. The courts were HCA's only option to overturn the arbitrary denial by the BOS.

 

On a side note, I believe that this problem (approval of the hospital) speaks of a bigger issue that plagues this county. Historically, the BOS has been much more pro-residential development than business development. I'm praying that the new BOS will be different. We desperately need to be business friendly, enticing businesses to choose to come to this county. It all starts with the permitting/zoning process. We need to tap into a different tax basis, have easier commutes, and support the existing residential infrastructure (like the hospital). If not, they're just going to keep increasing our property taxes to cover the expenses, people will choose to leave the county, and others coming in will choose to live in other counties with a lower tax basis. What do you think that will do to our property values? Just a thought...

 

I was referring to litigation discussed by detractors after the CCOB email list debacle. However, after re-reading the 60 posts around that time I have conluded that no one really discussed legal action. I thought the vitriol was over the top, even though the email list situation was truly a gross miscalculation. I stand corrected. Sorry for mistating the extent of the fervor.