Spirits were high in Patrick County on Monday as Stuart Community Hospital officially reopened for emergency and inpatient care.
Dozens of community members gathered outside for a ribbon-cutting ceremony marking the hospital’s return after eight years. Hospital leaders, county officials, state legislators and U.S. Rep. Morgan Griffith shared remarks reflecting on the long road to reopening. Above them, the hospital’s name stretched across the building, framed by the ridgeline of a mountain.
Braden Health, a Tennessee-based for-profit health care company, purchased the property at auction in 2024. According to Kyle Kopec, the company’s co-founder and chief compliance officer, it took about a year and $15 million to renovate and reopen the facility.
The company specializes in reviving rural hospitals that are on the brink of closure or have already shut their doors.
Dr. Beau Braden, the company’s founder and CEO, attended the opening ceremony. An emergency department physician, Braden began acquiring and flipping rural hospitals in 2020 after years of consulting work in rural areas. His company has worked with about 180 hospitals, Kopec said in a November 2024 interview.
Braden Health now owns about seven critical access hospitals, most of them in Tennessee. Stuart Community Hospital is its first acquisition in Virginia.
“This project is a testament to what happens when faith, grit and community come together,” Braden said. “We didn’t arrive here by accident. We arrived here by providence, hard work, determination, perseverance. And make no mistake, it was a fight to get here, but here we are.”
Company leaders say Braden Health succeeds in fragile rural markets where hospitals face higher costs because they serve smaller populations, many of whom rely on Medicaid or Medicare. Rural emergency departments face even steeper costs because they require around-the-clock staffing.
Kopec said during an August interview that the company aggressively negotiates insurance contracts and prioritizes employee satisfaction to reduce turnover, so it can rely less on temporary workers than other rural hospitals. Updated equipment also helps keep overhead costs lower and employees satisfied, he said.
Larry Henson, site manager for the project and revenue cycle director for Braden Health, will now serve as the CEO of Stuart Community Hospital.
Once patient volumes increase at the 25-bed facility and finances stabilize, the company plans to upgrade equipment, Henson said Monday. Updates to the X-ray machines are planned, and leaders hope to add mammography services in the future.
The reopening has already brought jobs to the area. More than 150 people were hired to work at the hospital, many of them from Patrick County or nearby communities. Others returned to work in their hometown, Kopec said.
During his remarks, Braden thanked each new department director by name, acknowledged their families and shared a personal detail about each one.
Kristin Amos, the new director of radiology, said she worked at the hospital before it closed in 2017, when it was the Pioneer Community Hospital.
“It’s amazing to see this come full circle,” Amos said.
Since the closure, the property has been largely vacant. Several buyers considered reopening or repurposing the building, but all eventually backed out.
Sen. Bill Stanley, R-Franklin County, noted the toll the closure took on the community.
“It was devastating,” Stanley said. “What I do remember is, in 2018, we worked so very hard and members of this community came to the General Assembly and lobbied. They took time out of their schedule to make sure that those people in Richmond did not forget about us.”
In 2022, Del. Wren Williams, R-Patrick County, sponsored a bill at the General Assembly that preserved the hospital’s state license to operate as an acute care and critical access hospital for a future provider. The bill passed with bipartisan support.
“People see a shuttered hospital, but they don’t realize seconds matter. … Trying to get to the ER was the most important thing on my legislative to-do list,” Williams said at the event.
Weeks later, the hospital property was purchased by Chicago-based Foresight Health for about $2.1 million. After years of unfilled promises and shifting plans — and the indictment of Foresight’s CEO on unrelated federal fraud charges — the project eventually collapsed.
Braden Health bought the property in November 2024 for about $600,000.
At first, the community was skeptical. But construction crews arrived quickly, and residents were invited to walk through the hospital throughout the renovation process. Trust in the company grew.
After the ribbon-cutting, visitors toured the top floor of the two-story facility. Then, holding a radio, Williams made the first official call to emergency medical services.
“This is Stuart Community Hospital in Stuart, Virginia,” he said. “Effective immediately, Jan. 5, 2026, Stuart Community Hospital is fully open and operational. Emergency department and inpatient services restored. We are now accepting and receiving patients. Units may now begin transporting patients to this hospital. … Stuart Community Hospital all clear.”
The crowd cheered.
