The Covenant Health System has announced that it wants to build a new 105,000 square-foot hospital in Hobbs, New Mexico.
The project is expected to cost $75 million to complete and will have 32 patient beds, as well as an emergency room, operating room, intensive care unit, and labor and delivery center.
The new facility will additionally include a community center that will be used for conducting health education classes.
In a statement, Richard Parks, Covenant Health chief executive officer, noted that residents in Hobbs currently travel to the hospital’s Lubbock, Texas facility for assistance, a 110-mile journey one-way.
“In order to build a healthy community, the community has to have access to care,” said Parks. “We understand the burden placed on patients who need or choose to travel hours back and forth to Lubbock for their care.”
Covenant Health’s new Hobbs hospital is partly a response to the explosive population growth of Lea County, which has gone from 55,000 to 70,000 in the last two decades, while the city of Hobbs has seen a jump of more than 10,000 during that same time period for a total of 38,200 today.
Covenant Health was founded in 1998 as a result of a merger between the Lubbock Methodist Hospital System and the St. Mary of the Plains Hospital.
Upon the announcement of the new hospital, the Economic Development Corporation of Lea County hailed the project as one that will prove “instrumental in the continued growth and vitality of the Hobbs community.”
By Garry Boulard
