Roper Withdraws Opposition to Summerville Medical Expansion

Roper St. Francis Healthcare has dropped its appeal of a Summerville hospital's expansion, hoping Trident Health System's will agree not to block its new facility planned at Carnes Crossroads.

Trident Health issued a press release Monday saying the legal appeal has been "abandoned" by Roper.

Roper released this statement Monday:

"Roper St. Francis has withdrawn our opposition to the Certificate of Need request for the addition of hospital beds for Summerville Medical Center,” said Doug Bowling, Chief Strategy Officer, Roper St. Francis. “One of the purposes of our opposition was to make sure that Trident would not use it’s Summerville project to block a greatly needed Roper St. Francis Hospital at Carnes Crossroads which they have agreed not to do. It is our most sincere hope that in turn, Trident and its parent company, HCA, will finally acknowledge the need for the hospital we are planning to build in Berkeley County and allow our project to move forward, just as the state and a judge have said it should.”

In November 2010, Summerville Medical applied to DHEC for a Certificate of Need for a $26 million facility expansion to add 30 beds to the existing facility. In September 2011, DHEC approved and recognized the bed expansion, but Roper appealed DHEC’s decision, which delayed the project.  

Edited 4:45 p.m. April 16 to correct an error. The original article said Trident Health Systems had agreed not to block Roper's Carnes Crossroads. However, that is not true, according to a Trident spokesman.