Health Care

In the six years since lawmakers in both states waived anti-monopoly laws and Ballad was formed, ER visits for patients sick enough to be hospitalized grew more than three times as long and now far exceed the criteria set by state officials.

Foresight Health purchased the shuttered hospital in 2022 with a promise to reopen it, but little work was ever done on the building.

Hospital leaders say that new safety measures are in place, and that no patients came into contact with sullied instruments.

Foresight Health said it would hand over the property if the county paid half of the company’s expenses related to the project. Included on the list of expenses: more than $457,000 in private jet travel and stays at luxury resorts.

The project is part of a larger initiative to invest $1 billion to expand and modernize infrastructure throughout the health system.

Advocates heralded the governor’s proposed investment in Medicaid waivers, which would address the priority one waitlist of 3,440 people. But another 14,000-plus Virginians languish on other lists, and service providers say they’re already struggling to meet demand. 

The company suggested that ownership of the property be transferred to the county, but county officials say they weren’t aware of these plans.

There are more people in Southwest Virginia with chronic kidney disease than in other region in the Commonwealth, said Dr. David Salzberg, who will be leading the new program. This would be the only transplant service available in the western part of the state.

County officials said Tuesday that the hospital would not reopen. But Foresight Health, which bought the property two years ago, insists that “nothing is off the table.”