New inpatient tower would relieve crowded hospitals, MCV workers say

Heciel Nieves Bonilla, Assistant News Editor

VCU has submitted a proposal for a new inpatient care building on the corner of Leigh Street and North 12 Street. The tower would provide over 500 hospital beds as major hospital systems in the region cope with crowding and increasing populations.

VCU Medical Center often operates at 90% capacity or greater, according to the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

The project is a “long-term investment in the health of our communities,” VCU Health spokesperson Danielle Pierce stated.

VCU Health currently lists 820 beds in the hospital, which help handle around 42,000 inpatient discharges and over 110,000 emergency visits in the 2023 fiscal year. The expansion would increase the total number of beds by 72%. 

Extra beds are a way to reduce overcrowding in inpatient hospitals. Over 90% of U.S. emergency departments routinely report crowded conditions, according to the American College of Emergency Physicians. 

John Heard, a nurse practitioner working in the Intensive Care Unit at VCU, thinks a new facility could help get patients out of the ICU or emergency room and into a bed. 

“Sometimes there’s a traffic jam to get out of ICU, and patients have nowhere to go,” Heard said.

Sevval Ercan, a second-year VCU medical student, thinks crowding puts an extra burden on physicians in emergency departments in particular, and that the funding should go towards patient care instead, the core of medical practice.

“Not only is it why we are doctors, to do patient care, but I think it makes the job of medical students and physicians a lot easier when we have more resources towards patient care,” Ercan said. 

Ercan also listed more staff and medical tools with greater ease-of-use as worthy investments for the hospital.

VCU’s proposed $1.5 billion complex would be built in two phases of vertical construction, eventually hosting 576 beds, with construction starting in July 2027.