Lee Memorial boosts Estero hospital hopes

Lee Memorial Health System sealed the deal Thursday to buy 10 acres in Estero, fueling some residents’ hopes they will someday have expanded medical services in south Lee County.

The board of directors voted unanimously to purchase two tracts adjacent to the 22 acres near the southeast corner of U.S. 41 and Coconut Road that the board bought a year and a half ago.

Lee Memorial Chief Executive Officer Jim Nathan has said the additional 10 acres makes it even more likely that some sort of medical campus will be built in Estero, but there are no immediate plans for the land.

The uncertainty did not dampen the spirits of Estero resident Sam Levy.

Levy and other members of the volunteer Estero Council of Community Leaders have been working to get Lee Memorial to build a standalone emergency department in Estero. The moratorium outlawing the structures expires Saturday because state lawmakers did not renew it during this year’s state legislative session.

“I am tremendously encouraged,” said Levy. “The encouragement is that Lee Memorial now has a major investment in property in Estero.”

Lee Memorial is interested in a freestanding ER, but the regulations are too stringent to make it a reality, Nathan has said. Nathan plans to work with the state Agency for Health Care Administration to see if some of the regulations for standalone ERs can be reworked.

Gayle Lyons, a Lee Memorial board member, said the traffic congestion in Estero — the 12 miles in either direction to the closest ER — and the older population has convinced her that the unincorporated community needs some kind of emergency care.

Lyons, an Estero resident, said she is keeping her fingers crossed that a standalone ER, or even a hospital, will be built in Estero. Her husband, Gordon Lyons, is a member of the ECCL.

“We have a lot of room (on the land) for a lot of different things, like a medical complex,” she said. “The community would really like a hospital.”

One tract, which is directly south of Bonita Community Health Center, could be used to expand the facility. If Lee Memorial never builds on the land, however, the nearly 10 acres was too good of a deal to pass up, she said.

Including the 22 acres previously purchased, the hospital system will have paid about $12.50 per square foot in an area where other parcels have sold for double that.

Lee Memorial must have all three parcels rezoned to build a medical complex or hospital, and that cannot happen until 2009, according to the terms of the sale contract.

The board of directors also approved a $75,000 donation — in $25,000 increments during the next three fiscal years — to Southwest Florida Addiction Services’ capital campaign to build a 40-bed detoxification facility on Evans Avenue in Fort Myers.

SWFAS has a 19-bed detox center near Lee Memorial Hospital, and when it is full, intoxicated residents are taken to the hospital. It costs several hundreds of thousands of dollars to clear the drugs and alcohol out of their systems, so helping SWFAS build a new facility will save the hospital money in the long run, Nathan has said.

In other business, Lee Memorial could get some money from a $725 million settlement announced Thursday between the federal government and Tenet Healthcare Corp.

Dallas-based Tenet is accused of manipulating Medicare collection programs for too-large sums, reached a settlement agreement with the Department of Justice to pay the money over a four-year period.

Lee Memorial participated in the lawsuit, but it is not known if or how much the health-care system will receive, said Nathan.