THE VILLAGES - Munroe Regional Medical Center and Ocala Regional Medical Center have filed a lawsuit opposing The Villages Regional Hospital's planned expansion. In the lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Florida's Second Judicial Circuit in Tallahassee, the hospitals challenge the legality of the law passed this legislative session which grants The Villages hospital an exemption from the Certificate of Need review process that hospitals must go through before adding beds.

Attorneys for Munroe Regional and Ocala Regional argue the exemption did not meet the local public notice requirements for a law giving a specific local privilege and that it strips them of their legal rights to have input on another health care facility's expansion through CON review procedures.

"It certainly denies our right to due process and it effectively denies our right to equal protection," said Stephen Ecenia, the Tallahassee attorney representing Ocala Regional. "If we want to add beds we have to go through the CON review. If they want to add beds they just go to the Legislature."

The law being challenged allows a hospital in a county that has experienced at least a 60 percent population growth over the last decade to add up to 180 beds without going through the Agency For Health Care Administration's review process as long as the hospital is the only one in the county and the only one for a 10-mile radius. Only two hospitals in the state, Villages Regional and Memorial Hospital in Flagler County, met the criteria for the exemption. The law passed Republican controlled Legislature by a margin of 76-37 in the House and 27-12 in the Senate and was signed into law by Gov. Jeb Bush in June. That vote drew criticism from state Democratic Party officials since Villages developer H. Gary Morse is one of the leading contributors to the Republican Party in Florida. It also allowed The Villages Regional Hospital to proceed with plans for a $45 to $50 million north tower that will increase the number of beds at the hospital from 60 to 192.

"In this instance, this particular hospital has been granted the authority to circumvent the rules and go straight to construction," Munroe Regional CEO Dyer Michell said. "We feel it will impact negatively every hospital in the region. If there are rules we feel it is fair that everyone should follow them."

Jim Wood, CEO for Ocala Regional, argued that by significantly increasing the number of hospital beds in the area without showing a demonstrated need before AHCA, the exemption jeopardizes Ocala Regional's $55 million investment in West Marion Community Hospital and Munroe's $84 million investment to add nearly 100 beds, projects that went through AHCA review.

"That was an investment in our county based on the projection that these rules are in place and all of a sudden these rules aren't there," Wood said. "You have this huge investment that is now at risk."

Rep. Frank Farkas R- St. Petersburg, chairman of the House's Health Care Committee, who sponsored the challenged legislation in the House, said the exemption was justified in The Villages, which is projected to have a build-out of some 100,000 residents.

"When you have a fast-growing community and you don't have sufficient bed space you're asking for a potential disaster," Farkas said.

He said the exemption was necessary to get those beds in place in a timely manner when the CON process is "cumbersome, lengthy and the legal process is arduous."

"As far as equal protection, this bill, while it had The Villages in mind, it also had other areas of fast growth in mind," he said. "So this was not a Villages bill. This was a bill for fast growth counties that had hospital bed problems."

State Rep. Hugh Gibson, R- Lady Lake, said instead of opposing The Villages' hospital expansion, he believed Munroe and Ocala Regional administrators should be battling to get the CON process streamlined.

"I'm against the CON all together because it costs thousands of dollars and takes years to get these expansions," Gibson said. "I'll be honest with you, if any hospital in my area, which includes part of Marion County, came to me next year and said we need more beds, I would sponsor it for them (the bill seeking an exemption). I think the CON is an antiquated system."

The Villages Regional Hospital is a nonprofit hospital owned by Leesburg Regional Medical Center and run by a five-member board of directors with three members from the retirement community's developer and two from LRMC. The Villages' representatives on the board are Gary Morse and Mark Morse, members of the family developing the retirement community, and The Villages' attorney Dewey Burnsed. Burnsed did not return phone messages to his office Thursday afternoon. The developer's spokesman, Gary Lester, said he could not comment on the lawsuit because he was not a member of the hospital's board of directors and that Gary and Mark Morse could not be reached for comment Thursday.

The Villages' developer is currently in negotiations to purchase the hospital from Leesburg Regional.