WILMINGTON — Three major healthcare organizations presented their plans to bring hospitals to Wilmington Thursday, with community members subsequently squaring off in a public comment period. One system gained the most support: Novant Health.
More than 100 people crowded into the New Hanover County Arboretum Education Center on for a public hearing on three certificates of need filed by Novant, Atrium Health and UNC Health. All three systems are applying to fill, either in full or part, the 225-acute-care-bed gap in the state’s medical facilities plan.
READ MORE: Novant applies to bring standalone emergency department to Hampstead
The certificate of need division within the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services will use the public comments, along with ones submitted in writing to the division, in its determination of how to award the 225 beds. The state could choose to divvy up the beds among two or all three of the systems, or award the requested amount to only one.
UNC Health is requesting 150 beds to go at the corner of Shipyard Boulevard and S. 17th Street, while Atrium Health is requesting 42 beds for a facility to be built in Porter’s Neck. Novant Health, the only operator of a major hospital in the Cape Fear region, is requesting all 225 to go into a heart and vascular tower at New Hanover Regional Medical Center.
“When Novat came to this region, they made a lot of mistakes, no question about it,” resident Lance Cross said, noting the public should also take note of their improvements. “They deserve these 225 beds as an expansion, rather than provide it to someone else as an integration, because integrations do cause trouble.”
Though the majority of speakers expressed favor for Novant, UNC Health was the next choice. Atrium was only preferred by a handful of speakers, though they and Atrium’s representatives failed to highlight specific areas that set the system apart from its competitors.
Many of the speakers that did not fall in Novant’s camp stressed the importance of breaking Novant’s monopoly over hospitalizations in the region.
“I think the best thing for Novant would be to have a strong competitor,” Patrick Booth said. “It’s like Duke and Carolina in basketball — it makes both teams better.”
North Carolina House Representative Ted Davis Jr. (R-New Hanover) also was in support of more competition. Davis didn’t state whether he supported UNC or Atrium’s bid,
“I have no grudge against Novant whatsoever, but I firmly believe that I need to have the opportunity to have a choice if I want,” Davis said.
Though a local elected leader showed support for UNC-Health. New Hanover County Commissioner Rob Zapple previously submitted a letter of support for UNC Health and, in his remarks Thursday, pointed out Wilmington Health, a network of doctors offices currently competing with Novant, supports UNC’s proposal as well.
Zapple was the only commissioner on the board that voted against New Hanover County selling its hospital to Novant in 2020.
“Since New Hanover Regional Medical Center was sold by New Hanover County to Novant Health, our citizens have waited for them to live up to the expectations that were set in the asset purchase agreement,” he said during public comment Thursday.
Still, he said he supported awarding Novant the remaining 75 beds UNC was not requesting in its application.
Dr. Christy Page, chief executive officer at UNC Health and dean of the UNC School of Medicine, stressed UNC Health is the only competing system with a statutory mission to improve the health and well-being of North Carolinians. The system is governed by the UNC Health Care System Board of Directors and its funds are subject to state oversight.
“We bring a true and authentic commitment to serve, not for institutional achievement to get feathers in our cap or all the different reasons one might pursue getting larger or starting a new venture,” Page said.
Novant’s representatives leaned on existing infrastructure and partnerships in the community, highlighting they are the only system requesting to meet the full 225-bed need. Additionally, representatives noted these beds would be slotted into an existing continuum of care, helping to improve Novant’s current services by adding more capacity.
Many speakers in favor of Novant — including former Wilmington Mayor Spence Broadhurst, who once served on The Endowment, created from the Novant sale — stressed the regionally established health network could complete the job the fastest because of its existing footprint.
Per the applications, Novant is expecting to build its tower by 2030, followed by UNC Health in 2031 and Atrium in 2032.
Several physicians and community partners of Novant came to laud the healthcare system for its community contributions, including YMCA of Southeastern NC president and CEO Dick Jones and Cape Fear Habitat for Humanity President and CEO Marlowe Foster.
“Novant has sponsored 17 Habitat homes and contributed nearly $1.4 million dollars to our organization, helping hardworking families in this community achieve the dream of home ownership,” Foster said.
However, county resident and nurse Gail Bordeaux pointed out another hospital system could be equally good community partners if granted a campus in the region.
Many of the speakers in favor of UNC Health liked that the system was backed by academia — with greater access to a pipeline of UNC medical students — and is considered on the cutting edge of healthcare.
Ed Wilkinson shared he had been diagnosed with cancer after being exposed to Agent Orange, a powerful herbicide used in the Vietnam War to destroy food crops and forest cover, during his military service in southeast Asia. For the last eight years, Wilkinson has been traveling back and forth to Chapel Hill, where UNC Health offered him access to a clinical trial unavailable at other systems.
“UNC Health doesn’t just stand on the edge of medical innovation — they lead it, they push it forward,” Wilkinson said. “They don’t just knock on the door, they kick that sucker in.”
However, many supporters of Novant claimed the UNC Health facility planned for Wilmington would not be on the level of its Chapel Hill facilities.
Scott Whisnant, the former administrator of community relations at Novant NHRMC, said UNC and Atrium’s facilities would be community hospitals more in line with Jacksonville. UNC Health took over Onslow Memorial Hospital in 2019, yet it has only one out of five quality stars from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service.
Whisnant also tooka dig at Atrium, saying representatives chose “one of the least diverse sites” in the region, noting its five-mile proximity to the affluent neighborhood of Landfall.
“They sure didn’t choose Northside, Creekwood, or south Shipyard, or places where the least healthy lived,” he said. “They’re proposing a hospital of rich people, by rich people, and for rich people.”
Though Whisnant said he left his position at Novant because of its corporate approach, he said the hospital has improved in recent years.
While Novant has the benefit of a track record in the region, that same track record could also be seen as a detriment. Several speakers brought up the hospital’s “immediate jeopardy” status in 2022.
Prompted by an elderly woman’s death after going five hours without attention, investigators with Center for Medicare and Medicaid found the hospital noncompliant in several areas that caused, or is likely to cause, serious injury, harm, impairment, or death to a patient. Due to the immediate jeopardy status imposed, NHRMC was at risk of losing its Medicare contract, which would prevent the facility from billing the federal program.
Reporting from Port City Daily highlighted the hospital’s lack of adequate staffing contributed to the noncompliance. Novant blamed the shakeups caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and the high volume of patients seeking care across the seven-county region the hospital serves.
The hospital never lost its Medicare/Medicaid contracts and has reported improvements since the immediate jeopardy. However, the hospital remains at a “C” grade in Leapfrog Safety reports, a ranking Jon Martell of the Five Star Project is trying to change.
“[Novant’s] argument, in part, is because they have the infrastructure, they can build and deploy these beds very quickly and cost efficiently,” Martell said Thursday. “That is not a compelling argument when Novant has not demonstrated to our community that they can keep their existing hospital gear clean, safe, and well staffed.”
He added the hospital also has not presented a plan to make the hospital a top-rated facility, as promised when NHRMC was sold to the system in 2021.
Additionally, one speaker demonstrated, in his experience, Novant had not changed.
Ron Degraff said he was sent to the emergency room in the new Scott’s Hill facility shortly after it opened on June 16, 2026. He was told he would need to be transferred to NHRMC at 3 p.m. and reported not being checked on or monitored with machines until 11 p.m. when his ambulance arrived.
Once he arrived at NHRMC, Degraff said he received different orders from various doctors on his care team. After his eventual discharge, he said he received a message in his portal saying he had pancreatic cancer.
“Not once did Novant call to tell me what I had, but at 3 p.m. they called to schedule an oncology appointment for July 22, but they still didn’t tell me what for,” Degraff said.
Before he was discharged from Novant, he had scheduled an appointment at UNC Health, who saw him, explained his diagnosis and gave him a prognosis, a full month earlier than the Novant appointment.
Part of Novant’s argument for 225 beds is the health provider will alleviate current overcrowding at the hospital, which is contributing to some of the back-up in care at the hospital.
Novant representatives pointed out the hospital still has specialties — many speakers praised its award-winning cardiovascular offerings — other systems will not offer at their proposed facility.
“When you, your friends, or your family members need the high level of care that is delivered at Novant Health New Hanover, I and my colleagues will be there to care for you,” cardiologist William Smith said. “If and when another healthcare system comes to this community, we will likewise coordinate and care for those patients who need to be transferred to New Hanover for our higher level of care. It is imperative that the state recognize this community’s need and equip our region’s flagship acute care hospital with the bed capacity to deliver on our responsibility.”
The certificate of need division now has 90 to 150 days to review the feedback and applications.
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