Day takes issue with hospital report

Mayor Sheldon Day disputed a report in The Thomasville Times that the Federal Housing and Urban Development office denied Southwest Alabama Medical Center's application for federal funding to build a new hospital.

Day said it was the hospital's owners, Resurgence Healthcare, who pulled out of the process. "It was going to be too many hurdles to climb, and HUD is jut not used to lending to for-profit agencies," Day said. "It was going to be a very long, drawn-out expensive process for the hospital to go through. They were skeptical that the hospital could add the services it wanted to add, but so far, the hospital's been adding those services."

Day also disputed that the hospital had not made a formal application to HUD for the financing. The hospital had completed its pre-application in February of 2008. HUD officials confirmed that the last meetings held with hospital and city officials were still pre-application meetings and not part of the formal final application for funding.

If the hospital is able to secure private financing, papers filed with the state's hospital certificate of need board show the total project is estimated to cost about $39 million. The cost of construction has estimated cost of about $25 million.