To the Editor:
The Developer-owned Daily Sun recently published an article that attacked an impact fee increase in Sumter County. That article stated, “For example, David R. Nelson, president of UF Health, has said that the millions in added costs may jeopardize plans for a new hospital in south county.”
The speaker at the March 16 POA meeting was Ed Jimenez, CEO of UF Health Shands; he talked about the status of plans for a new UF Health hospital to relieve the shortage of beds in both the Leesburg and The Villages UF Health Hospitals. The shortage of beds causes backups in both ERs; because ER patients that require hospitalization are waiting for beds in the hospital. While they are waiting, they are using ER patient capacity.
Per Ed Jimenez, a new hospital is in the planning stage. The total cost of the new hospital is yet to be determined; if it is too costly, plans will have to be changed. The plan is a hospital with initially about 200 beds, with a plan to grow in size as the population grows. It will be located at the interchange of the Florida Turnpike at Hwy. 470. This location is in Lake County; it is not in Sumter County. There was no mention of a new hospital in south Sumter County.
Ed Jimenez likes the Turnpike/470 location but he did not appear to be aware of which county it was located. He also stated that he wanted to avoid the politically sensitive subject of impact fees.
The viability of a new UF Health hospital in Lake County has nothing to do with raising impact fees in Sumter County to keep the burden of the expansion of The Villages off the backs of the current property owners in Sumter County.
John Kastura
Village of Belvedere