THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 10, 1996 TAG: 9603080281
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY PHYLLIS SPEIDELL, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 165 lines
AFTER 27 YEARS in an office on Clifford Street, in one of Portsmouth's older residential sections, Dr. Frank Mancuso this year will move his pediatric practice to Route 17, in northeast Suffolk.
He will join 10 other physicians in a new branch of Lakeview Medical Center - an 18,000-square-foot facility to open in December.
In addition to pediatric care, it will offer medical specialties including family practice, internal medicine, obstetrics and pediatric allergies.
The Lakeview building is among nine medical facilities that have opened or are proposed for the burgeoning area where the Portsmouth, Suffolk and Chesapeake boundaries touch and city identities blur.
The area's long-expected growth is well on its way, with the rapid expansion of the Harbour View community in northeast Suffolk and the completion of dozens of single-family and multifamily housing complexes in Western Branch and Churchland. The Harbour View community alone has attracted more than 350 families in just over two years.
``Health care providers are looking at that area as one of major growth,'' said Lu Ann Stamper, planning director for Bon-Secours Maryview Medical Center in Portsmouth.
Mancuso views his move with the excitement but also with a twinge of regret. ``I am still from the old school, and I like the neighborhood doctor concept where you can see the children grow up around you,'' he said. ``But the neighborhood physician concept has been squeezed out by practical concerns.''
Mancuso practiced with Tidewater Physicians for Children, a group that recently merged with Lakeview Medical Center. Increasing costs and decreasing profits have forced many smaller practices to merge with larger groups for survival and cost effectiveness, Mancuso explained.
The merger prompted Lakeview to expand its presence in northeast Suffolk, where it had maintained a small, part-time office for several years. ``That is a growing population center, and we needed space to put those doctors with offices, X-ray and laboratory facilities,'' said Dr. George W. Cornell, president of Lakeview Medical Center.
Maryview of Portsmouth, Obici Hospital of Suffolk, Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters of Norfolk, Tidewater Health Care (parent company of Portsmouth General Hospital) and Chesapeake General Hospital also have stepped forward to establish or expand presence in the area.
Dr. Thankum Pillai, a family practice physican on the staff of Obici and Maryview, was a medical pioneer in the area with an office on Bennett's Pasture Road. It has continued since 1978.
Last spring, Obici Hospital opened North Suffolk Family Medicine on Route 17, staffed with osteopath Dr. Lynne Stockman. Primarily a family practice physician, Stockman offers some emergency care and occupational medicine. The center has laboratory and radiology facilities.
Cardiology Associates, a three- doctor group specializing in cardiology and internal medicine, also regularly see patients at North Suffolk Family Medicine.
Maryview's Health Care Center - Suffolk opened last October, less than half a mile down Route 17. Here Dr. James Williams, a family practitioner, and Eileen Deegan, a certified nurse practitioner, oversee the ambulatory care center that provides primary care, occupational medicine and physical therapy services. The center also offers laboratory and radiology services on site.
The Bon-Secours Maryview Nursing Care Center, a 120-bed nursing home nestled on a wooded property just off Route 17 in northeast Suffolk, recently celebrated its sixth anniversary.
Plans call for a 24-bed sub-acute rehabilitation unit, attached to the nursing home, to be completed by late summer. The focus of the unit will be short term in-patients who are recovering from strokes, hip and knee replacements, fractures and neurological problems.
The nursing care center property is one of several locations in north Suffolk that Maryview is considering for an assisted living facility that would provide for the elderly and chronically ill a level of care that is between the nursing care center and their own homes.
The 60- to 80-unit center may become reality as early as September 1997.
May will see groundbreaking for the Chesapeake Hospital Authority's Wellness and Fitness facility, just a few exits down Route 664 on Taylor Road. The 44,000-square-foot center will include a 6-lane, 25-meter pool, a whirlpool spa, an indoor track, a gymnasium and a full line of weight equipment and free weights.
Child care facilities and classrooms for health and fitness instruction, as well as aerobics, are also part of the facility. It is scheduled to open in spring 1997.
The Taylor Road location has also been tagged as the site for one of two mini-hospitals proposed for the tri-cities area.
Tidewater Health Care in Virginia Beach, Portsmouth General Hospital and Chesapeake General Hospital have jointly proposed the TriCity Community Medical Center, a hospital providing obstetrical, gynecological, and related services. The center would be constructed on property adjacent to the wellness and fitness center.
Obici, Maryview, and The Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters have proposed an alternate facility, the Family Health Center for Women and Children. This eight-bed hospital, providing obstetrical services, normal newborn services, and outpatient gynecological and pediatric surgery, would be built on property adjacent to the campus of the Maryview Nursing Care Center on Route 17.
Both mini-hospital proposals require a certificate of public need from the state health commissioner, who relies partially on recommendations from the Eastern Virginia Health Services Agency and the state health department's office of resource development. Last week, the state health department, concurring with an earlier EVHSA decision, recommended that each of the proposals be denied.
``We have not identified a need for increased medical facilities in that area,'' Paul Parker said. Parker is director of the office of resources development for the state department of health.
``We will continue to proceed with the review cycle until the commissioner makes his final decision,'' Stamper said regarding the Family Health Center for Women and Children proposal. Tidewater Health Care/Chesapeake General Hospital are planning to take a look at the health department's recommendations and decide whether to remain or withdraw from the certification review. MEMO: This article was also published in the Chesapeake Clipper, Sunday, March
10, 1996.
Lakeview unfamiliar to many, although its history dates to 1905
When Dr. Frank Mancuso talked with his patients about his move to
Lakeview Medical Center in northeast Suffolk, he found that many -
especially those from Portsmouth and Chesapeake - were unfamiliar with
Lakeview.
They regarded it as something new on the local medical scene and had
no idea that the medical group had its beginnings 90 years ago as
Lakeview Hospital in downtown Suffolk.
Dr. J.E. Rawls began practicing medicine in Suffolk in 1900 and saw
the need for a local hospital. Lack of financing and civic wrangling had
stalled the project for years. So, in 1905, Rawls, along with another
young physician, Dr. E.R. Hart, bought two lots in downtown Suffolk and
built their own hospital.
In 1917, the hospital was expanded to include doctors' offices,
creating Lakeview Clinic, which ran in conjunction with the hospital.
The Lakeview Hospital School of Nursing opened in 1918 and continued
until 1951, when the hospital closed and Obici Hospital opened.
The next year, Lakeview Clinic moved into a modern building on land
next to where the old hospital had stood before it was demolished.
In 1989, Lakeview's present medical complex on Meade Parkway opened.
Since then, Lakeview Medical Clinic has expanded with offices in
Smithfield and Franklin, as well as northeast Suffolk.
ILLUSTRATION: Color photos and map on cover
Maryview Health Center
Dr. Lynn Stockman of North Suffolk Family Medicine
Dr. George Cornell, president of Lakeview Medical Center
Staff photos by JOHN H. SHEALLY II
Maureen Johnson, 65, is helped down the hallway at Lakeview Medical
Center by Cornelia Stilley.
A photo of the original Lakeview Medical Center sits atop plans for
the proposed new medical center.
Martha Pantelides stands in front of Maryview Nursing Care Center.
Photo
Dr. Frank Mancuso
Map by John Earle, The Virginian-Pilot
by CNB