Congressman Charles Taylor, R-Brevard, presented a check for $250,000 to Haywood Regional Medical Center officials Monday (Feb. 14). The monies are earmarked for a new Outpatient Surgery Center to be located on a small hill to adjacent to the hospital.

“This is not where we’re stopping, this is where we’re starting,” Taylor said, explaining that additional federal funds are expected to be funneled to the hospital in a series of disbursements.

Currently, the new surgery center is in the early design phase. The building is expected to be 50,000 square feet and include three floors. Estimated cost is $10 million — approximately $7 million for the first floor where surgery will take place and $3 million for the upper two floors. The new facility will connect with the existing surgery facility located at the front and east side of the hospital. Continued planning is expected to take place over the next 18 months, though no groundbreaking date has been set.

The need for a new outpatient surgery center has evolved over the course of the past several years due to the dramatic shift from inpatient to outpatient surgery, hospital officials say. About 75 percent of the hospital’s more than 8,000 surgeries performed each year are outpatient cases.

“This facility is needed to accommodate a growing demand for surgeries in our service area,” said HRMC President David Rice. “We are committed to providing state-of-the-art surgery. We anticipate that the demand on our operating rooms schedule will increase significantly due to our area’s population growth, as well as our expected growth in orthopedic services, spine surgery program, and numerous other surgical procedures that are done on an outpatient basis.”