Construction has begun in West Memphis on a $25 million hospital, Baptist Memorial Hospital-Crittenden County.
Officials from Baptist Memorial Health Care and Crittenden County broke ground last month for the new facility, a little more than two years after Crittenden Regional Hospital closed due to financial problems. Officials decided it would be more cost-effective to build a new hospital rather than renovate the old facility.
Baptist will be responsible for day-to-day hospital operations and will employ the facility’s staff. Crittenden County taxpayers voted in March to direct an existing one-cent, five-year sales tax to build the hospital. The facility will measure about 50,000 square feet and include an emergency room, cancer services, imaging and diagnostics and a number of other services and is expected to open in early-to-mid 2018.
Also this month Calhoun Health Services, a hospital and nursing home in Calhoun City, Mississippi, will become affiliated with Baptist and be known as Baptist Memorial Hospital – Calhoun and Baptist Nursing Home – Calhoun.
Next year, Baptist will open a new, $300 million hospital in Oxford, Mississippi.