The new Cherokee (N.C.) Indian Hospital broke ground this week, three years after planning began.
The $75 million, 150,000-square-foot facility will include inpatient and outpatient services, a laboratory, a pharmacy, physical therapy and other patient services. The new hospital, which officials expect to be completed in early 2016, is under construction adjacent to the existing building, which opened in 1981.
“(This is) a unique opportunity to create a facility which will serve as a healthcare and community anchor for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians,” Michell Hicks, the group's principal chief, said in a release. “The local community, including tribal elders, artists, students and enrolled members, as well as physicians and medical professionals, have all played a big role in shaping this new facility.”
Cherokee Indian Hospital serves a tribe of 15,000 members across a five-county area of western North Carolina.
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