By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
JULY 29, 2022 | By the time a new 17-story tower at Northside Hospital Gwinnett is completed in 2026, that would mean it would be the biggest single hospital campus in Georgia.
Debbie Mitchum, president of that Lawrenceville hospital, says: “We will first add 240 beds to the new tower, and completely build out 12 floors. We’ll hold the other floors for expansion of another 240 beds as warranted. Eventually with our other rooms, we’ll have a total of 973 beds, the biggest hospital at one site in Georgia.”
The anticipated cost of the first phase is $500 million, with the fully-completed hospital costing close to $800 million. It’s expected that the first phase should open in 2025 and all 17 stories as determined by need. Ms. Mitchum succeeded Phil Wolfe, who retired Aug. 28, 2019.
Ms. Mitchum says: “We originally thought that 10 stories would be needed here, but the state model for the number of beds showed we needed more. That plus the anticipated growth in Gwinnett, made us stop and reassess, and we realized that we had to have more space, and it was best to go taller in floors. We then filed for a second Certificate of Need.”
Mitchum
The 17-story height of the building was limited by another factor: the nearby airport Briscoe Field, where the take-off and landing flight paths are over Lawrenceville and the hospital.
While all of the 17 floors will not be immediately used, building all 17 stories is well underway, having started earlier this year.
Ms. Mitchum succeeded Phil Wolfe as president of the Lawrenceville hospital in 2019. She is a veteran of the hospital business, and has spent 30 years at Northside, the most recent as chief financial officer and vice president for finance. She’s originally from Norwich, N.Y., and moved with her mother to Douglas County when she was eight years old. She immediately felt the wrath of other native school students, who chanted at her “Yankee, go home.” She was confused by it, saying: “I had to go home and ask my mother what a Yankee was.”
Once graduated from Douglas County High, she decided to go to Georgia Tech. “I originally thought I wanted to be a doctor, but went to Tech because of its great engineering program.” Her major was in health science. “I always knew I wanted to work in the medical field. My major was like industrial engineering for hospitals.” After graduation, her hospital work took her to Pensacola, Fla., Amherst, Mass., and to Gainesville, Ga. , where she worked at the Northeast Georgia Health Center, before joining the Northside staff.
Ms. Mitchum has been active in her community, serving on the board of Sacred Hearts, a Georgia-based nonprofit helping girls who have been sexually trafficked in Costa Rica. She is an elder in the Presbyterian Church and has an interest is Street Grace, another group dealing with domestic minor sex trafficking. She recently was named to the board of Rainbow Village of Duluth. She lives in Dunwoody, and has one adult daughter.
In a few weeks, she’ll embark on a trip overseas. “It’ll be a honeymoon, as I am getting married again. We plan to spend a week in Italy on the Amalfi coast and then a week in Sicily.”
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
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