Lee Memorial Health System plans to move its regional trauma center from Lee Memorial Hospital in Fort Myers to Gulf Coast Medical Center as part of a $315 million expansion of that more centrally located health center.
The publicly operated health system announced the plan to employees this morning. Its elected governing board must still formally approve the move, which likely would not happen for several years.
Jim Nathan, the health system’s president and CEO, is expected to formally announce the plans this afternoon.
Lee Memorial Hospital, the founding hospital of the now multi-centered Lee Memorial Health System, would continue to operate its emergency department and perform its other acute-care hospital functions, health system administrators say. It would also be home to additional “wellness” and new outpatient programs.
From a memo that Jim Nathan wrote to health system employees states; “Lee Memorial Hospital will continue to play a vital role in our healthcare system, as it has for nearly 100 years,”
But moving the trauma center, which treats more life-threatening injuries than ERs, would further establish Gulf Coast as the organization’s flagship hospital.