(The Center Square) — When officials in Lee County tried to build “a small acute care hospital” with 60 beds and four operating rooms, it began a multi-year process that cost millions of dollars and didn’t end with the construction of a facility.
“When we started our quest to build a hospital, we knew that it was going to be an uphill battle,” Billy Mathis, the Lee County Commission chairman, told lawmakers during a Senate Study Committee on Certificate of Need Reform hearing on Monday. “For the first couple of years, after you are granted a certificate of need, you fight litigation. The code in Georgia encourages litigation, basically. So, you get your certificate of need, and then all sorts of folks sue you — to put it very plainly.”
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