From ECU Health’s plans to reopen a closed North Carolina hospital as a rural emergency facility to a healthcare group aiming to reopen a shuttered Wisconsin hospital, here are four planned hospital reopenings that Becker’s has reported in 2025:
1. Greenville, N.C.-based ECU Health is planning to reopen Williamston, N.C.-based Martin General Hospital as the state’s first rural emergency hospital.
The plan comes after Martin County officials signed a nonbinding proposal with ECU Health in mid-May for the development after the county’s board of commissioners voted in early January to lease or sell the hospital, which shut down Aug. 3, 2023, after it sought Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection.
2. Southwest Georgia Regional Medical Center in Cuthbert, which closed in October 2020, received funding to reopen as a critical access hospital and eventually transition to a rural emergency hospital. Renovations are expected to take about a year and a half and an exact timeline for reopening has not been finalized.
3. The Chippewa Valley Health Cooperative — an independent nonprofit organization — finalized a purchase agreement March 13 with Hospital Sisters Health System for the St. Joseph’s Hospital building in Chippewa Falls, Wis.
Last year, Springfield, Ill.-based HSHS closed St. Joseph’s and Sacred Heart Hospital in Eau Claire, Wis., terminating its presence in western Wisconsin. The cooperative has 90 days to complete due diligence to determine the financial feasibility of reopening the facility. If viable, it could welcome patients to the St. Joseph’s campus by winter 2025.
4. Jamestown, Tenn.-based Phoenix Rural Health secured a lease for a hospital facility in Jellico, Tenn., with plans to reopen it as a rural emergency hospital in six to eight months. Since opening in 2020, the Jellico hospital has closed multiple times and has been managed by three different companies. The hospital ceased operations in March 2024.
