‘We wait no longer’: How the new Fort Mill hospital overcame so much to open its doors
At her first town council meeting, now Mayor Guynn Savage sat for an agenda that included discussion on a possibility of a Fort Mill hospital. Tuesday, 18 years later, Savage stood in the foyer of a brand new one alongside scores of community leaders who made that hospital happen.
“Our community can now receive the care they need and deserve,” Savage said, “right here at home.”
Tenet Healthcare staff and dignitaries cut the ribbon Tuesday morning on Piedmont Medical Center — Fort Mill. The 100-bed hospital at the corner of S.C. 160 and U.S. 21 Bypass faced an arduous journey to completion. One with near unprecedented challenges to overcome.
“I can assure you that none of us had envisioned the roadblocks, and dedication it would take to get to where we are today,” said physician and hospital board of directors chair Mark Billman.
Billman said discussion from within Piedmont on a new Fort Mill hospital dates back 20 years. There were four different administrative teams in that span. Piedmont initially received state approval to build a hospital, but several vying healthcare groups spent more than a decade in legal appeals before a state Supreme Court decision in 2019 confirmed Piedmont as the pick to build.
After that 2019 decision Piedmont held an event at the bandstand and a restaurant downtown to celebrate, in what then felt like a clear path toward construction and opening.
Then 2020 hit. Piedmont staff would be forced to do what Billman said was all but impossible.
“They built and staffed a hospital in the midst of a worldwide pandemic,” Billman said.
Chris Mitchell, CEO of the new Fort Mill hospital, said challenges were significant.
“The entire hospital was designed virtually,” Mitchell said.
All while Piedmont staff, based from the longstanding Rock Hill center by the same name, served COVID patients throughout the pandemic.
“At the same time, the community needed to get vaccinated,” Mitchell said.
Everything from a compromised supply chain for construction to staffing challenges across industry sectors played a part.
“We successfully brought in millions of dollars of state-of-the-art equipment and technology into this facility, and we did it on time during the most challenged supply chain era in modern history,” Mitchell said.
Tenet Healthcare CEO Saum Sutaria said a new, high-tech, state-of-the-art facility with support from the Fort Mill community is a benefit not only to patients, but to staff who endured the challenges.
“In this environment, to be able to give to our caregivers, our staff, our clinicians and everybody in this community a new facility in the middle of a few years where you have all given well beyond what anybody could have ever asked of you through this COVID crisis, it just gives me great pleasure,” Sutaria said.
Fort Mill hospital
The hospital today will serve a different Fort Mill than the one two decades ago, when the hospital started as an idea.
“It was the first one,” Savage said of early hospital discussions. “Urgent care facilities were still a novelty back then. We were absolutely under the care of several small family practices in Fort Mill. Since that point in time, we’ve grown.”
The population in town has more than doubled. Similar growth came in Tega Cay and unincorporated Fort Mill spots like Baxter. Savage said she’s lost family members and seen new ones born. Her family and many others in Fort Mill have had medical procedures that, if they required a hospital, meant leaving the community.
“When I see elderly folks with a loved one and no other family member have to get someone to drive them to care for their family member in another state, that takes my breath away,” Savage said. “That takes my heart away. So we waited, and we waited. Well, we wait no longer.”
Savage said Piedmont didn’t wait until the hospital opened this month to endear itself to Fort Mill. She points to vital services market CEO Mark Nosacka and others performed during great uncertainty during the pandemic.
“He and his staff were vital in setting up and providing vaccination clinics at a time that we all didn’t know what the next day would bring for us,” Savage said. “That endeared him to my heart.”
With the new hospital there are now 2,200 total Piedmont employees in York County. There are more than 640 doctors, surgeons and medical providers who use the now two hospitals and multiple emergency rooms. Nosacka acknowledged there were challenges during the pandemic that could have derailed the new hospital opening.
Now, the hospital and large medical building beside it could provide a significant draw for future healthcare services.
“It’s going to expand the ability of us to attract more caregivers to this community, to meet the growing demands of the public,” Nosacka said.
Sutaria said the co-commitment of his company and the Fort Mill community is the reason why the hospital is open. Sutaria focuses on what it means for the medical community here, but doesn’t lose sight of patients, either.
“We hope that over time you find that services that are provided here are meaningful for you and your families,” Sutaria said.
Since coming to this area five years ago, Nosacka faced the constant question of when the new Fort Mill hospital would open. His answer, amid challenges from legal appeals to COVID construction issues to staffing questions, became comically consistent. It’s an answer Nosacka got to give one last time on Tuesday morning just before cutting the ribbon on Fort Mill’s new hospital.
“We’ve never been closer,” Nosacka repeated. “To the ribbon cutting. We’ve never been closer, and it doesn’t get any closer than this.”
Billman, who said the week since opening already brought some of the highlights of his professional career, offered Nosacka a suggestion to replace the retired catchphrase.
“We’re open,” Billman said, ”and ready to serve.”
This story was originally published September 13, 2022 at 2:09 PM with the headline "‘We wait no longer’: How the new Fort Mill hospital overcame so much to open its doors."
