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New Angel Medical Center Construction Starts In April

Courtesy of Mission Health
This rendering of the new Angel Medical Center facility was shared in June 2020.

Mission Health System has announced that it is moving forward with its new hospital in Franklin after more than a 3-month delay because of the pandemic.

Mission Health says it will be breaking ground on the new Angel Medical Center at the end of April.

Dr. Timothy Layman oversees clinical operations at Angel. He says the new hospital, which will now be across town,  will have new technology - including a new imaging suite - and more space.

“This investment is one that will be one that will be felt throughout Macon County and beyond. And we are extremely excited that we had the opportunity to grow the initial facility bill and that receive that increase in funding,” said Layman.  He listed new CT and MRI scanners, new radiological suite, larger in and out patient services and a new helipad as other additions to the hospital. Angel got a new helicopter in November 2020.  

The new hospital - comes with a $68 million dollar price tag - $25 million higher than the original estimate. It was part of HCA’s deal when it purchased Mission Health in February 2019. Layman says the hospital will provide all of the current services. But there are no current plans to resume labor and delivery services - which were discontinued at Angel Medical Center back in 2017. Mission says it will watch the market and needs to determine if those services will return to Franklin.

The new hospital is still expected to open in 2022. There isn’t an update on what will happen to the old facility.

Lilly Knoepp is Senior Regional Reporter for Blue Ridge Public Radio. She has served as BPR’s first fulltime reporter covering Western North Carolina since 2018. She is from Franklin, NC. She returns to WNC after serving as the assistant editor of Women@Forbes and digital producer of the Forbes podcast network. She holds a master’s degree in international journalism from the City University of New York and earned a double major from UNC-Chapel Hill in religious studies and political science.
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