One of Hoover’s original founding families is now set to change health care in the city.
Continuing a legacy built by her father, Loree Skelton was joined by Hoover city officials and various other state and local lawmakers to announce construction of her state-of-the-art health care center, South Haven Surgical Plaza.
The new center, located at Stadium Trace Village, will offer a wide range of services, including one of the state’s first comprehensive preventive wellness programs. Those programs, which are relatively new in health care, focus on identifying health problems and conditions early—sometimes before they even begin—allowing patients to significantly reduce their effects, lower treatment costs and limit disruption to their lives.
South Haven will also serve as a one-stop location for residents in the Hoover area to receive a wide range of health care services.
“There’s going to be nothing like it in the state,” Hoover Mayor Nick Derzis said. “What (Loree Skelton) is doing here is phenomenal, not just for Hoover but for the entire region and the state.”
A rendering of South Haven Surgical Center in Hoover.
At a groundbreaking event Friday for the 80,000-square-foot facility, a large contingent of state business leaders and elected officials gathered to celebrate South Haven’s official construction launch. Longtime state Senator Jabo Waggoner, who introduced Skelton at the event, spoke of Skelton’s parents, Fred and Rita, and the impact they had on the city’s early development.
Loree Skelton said inspiration from her parents led to the pursuit of her South Haven facility—a pursuit that became bogged down in political turmoil that threatened the project. At times, that turmoil became quite nasty, as city leaders, including former Mayor Frank Brocato, backed their own health care project, Riverwalk Village Health.
But Skelton pushed back, as she is known to do—more than one speaker at Friday’s event remarked on her “headstrong” ways—and kept the project alive. It did not hurt that Brocato lost his re-election bid to Derzis, the former police chief who was supported by Skelton, in large part because of the turmoil surrounding the health care projects.
“(My parents) gave me the example that I needed—you don’t quit, you just keep going,” Skelton said. “When God tells you to do something, even when everyone else says it can’t be done, you just keep going.”
Skelton said her primary focus was providing the Hoover community with a comprehensive facility that delivers quality care, allowing her friends and neighbors to receive high-level treatment from start to finish without ever leaving their community.
“That’s why it’s so important—because it offers the people of Hoover start-to-finish care in their own backyard,” Skelton said. “They don’t have to go to several different places to receive treatment. They don’t have to travel to other cities for quality care.”
Once completed, South Haven Surgical Center will offer an outpatient surgery center with six operating rooms and two procedure rooms, imaging, diagnostic services and clinical office space.
