WISE COUNTY, Va. (WJHL) – The Wise County community and Ballad Health leaders celebrated 50 years of treating patients at Lonesome Pine Hospital Friday.
Shannon Showalter, the vice president and chief executive officer for Ballad Health operations in Lee, Wise and Dickenson Counties, said a $9.5 million investment at Lonesome Pine will renovate the campus and expand the hospital’s offerings.
“Access to health care in rural communities is really something that’s important and so important to the lives of the people who live here,” Showalter said. “And so we’re spending a lot of time making sure that people have access to care here.”
Mitch Kennedy, the chief operating officer at the Holston Valley Medical Center, previously worked as an administration officer at Lonesome Pine. He said the investment coming to the hospital is vital from Ballad Health’s perspective.
“The goal is to completely renovate this campus, make the second floor really outpatient,” Kennedy said. “We talked about some of that before, looking at pain management, looking at primary care upstairs, renovating the old obstetrics space to include a physical therapy gym and a fitness center for the team members to really show that we really care about the team members that come to work here every day, too. But I think it’s important that the community sees that we’re invested in rural access.”
Ballad Health reports Lonesome Pine Hospital has 78 beds, 60 of which are inpatient and 18 of which are for the emergency department.
