An artist rendering of the development planned by Community Health Network on 196th Street and East Street in Westfield. (Screenshot from APC agenda packet)
The Westfield City Council denied a request during its Jan. 26 meeting for a behavioral rehabilitation hospital to be built across from Community Health’s Westfield campus.
The amendment to the Unified Development Ordinance for the LPH/Community PUD District failed by a 4-3 vote. Councilors Noah Herron, Chad Huff, Patrick Tamm and Kurt Wanninger voted no.
The hospital was proposed for a 19-acre plot near the corner of 196th Street and East Street in Westfield. Lifepoint Corporate Services General Partnership, an affiliate of Lifepoint Health, a Tennessee-based company that operates 24 behavioral hospitals nationwide, was the applicant. The plan called for 120 beds and a 75,000-square-foot building.
During the meeting, Westfield Mayor Scott Willis criticized the petitioners
“This process has been extremely disappointing. I’ve asked (the petitioners) for references, I’ve asked (them) for information, data, and I got nothing,” Willis said. “We need behavioral health in this community. We need it desperately. But with these facilities come real problems, too, and the kind of data that I tried to get from you to determine what kinds of problems it was going to create, (the petitioners) kept putting up roadblocks. And every time I asked, ‘Can we delay this to get more information?’ (The petitioners) refused.”
Skepticism about the project was raised when Westfield Advisory Commission President Michael Neal commented on the project during the Jan. 14 APC meeting.
“There is a rumor going around that Community (Hospital) North, when (the Westfield behavioral health building) is completed, and when the south side project is completed, that it may close its operations, which to me seems like a key piece of information that may have been left out of the process,” Neal said.
On his Facebook page after the meeting, APC member and city councilor Victor McCarty addressed Neal’s concern.
“There is the possibility that Community Health North will close their behavioral health facility. This is concerning, as that means Westfield would then be the only location on the north side,” said McCarty, who ultimately voted for the facility at both the APC meeting and the city council meeting.
In a statement to Current, CHN addressed Neal’s comments:
“Community Health Network is not closing behavioral health services in Central Indiana. As we open two new 120-bed behavioral health hospitals, we plan to transition most inpatient acute behavioral health beds currently located at Community Hospital North into those new facilities. Community Hospital North will continue to provide inpatient behavioral health care with a smaller unit of approximately 20 beds to serve patients with medically complex needs. Overall, this transition will expand our inpatient behavioral health capacity across Central Indiana.”
Despite Neal’s concerns, the hospital was given a 7-0 recommendation by the APC at the Jan. 14 meeting.
