State committee approves CoxHealth’s $42M Monett plans

The Missouri Health Facilities Review Committee this morning approved CoxHealth’s $42 million plans for a new hospital in Monett.

Steve Edwards, the health care system’s president and CEO, tweeted about the approval and said a groundbreaking ceremony would be held May 1.

The Monett hospital was on the committee’s agenda this morning along with a $1.1 million MRI unit replacement at Cox Medical Center Branson and a $2.3 million robotic surgery system replacement at Mercy Hospital Joplin, among myriad other items.

CoxHealth previously announced the Monett hospital would be completed two years after the groundbreaking.

The planned 70,000-square-foot hospital would replace CoxHealth’s existing campus in Monett. Cox Monett Hospital opened as St. Vincent Hospital in 1953 and joined the Springfield-based CoxHealth system in 1993. It’s one of CoxHealth’s two critical-access hospitals — meaning it’s available for rural residents in time-sensitive situations — along with Cox Barton County Hospital in Lamar, according to a news release issued in December 2018.