Medical center set to open in De Queen

De QUEEN — The grand opening for the Sevier County Medical Center will be Dec. 2.

The celebration is from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at 960 U.S. 71 N., De Queen.

The official ribbon cutting by the Sevier County Chamber of Commerce will be at noon. Tours of the medical center will be given and refreshments will be served.

Dec. 6 is the scheduled date for the hospital to begin accepting patients.

The hospital has 15 beds and 10 rooms in the emergency department, according to county officials.

Hospital staff members have been moving in recently and training employees. The hospital is expected to employ about 115 people.

The hospital, whose funding was approved by Sevier County voters through a 1% sales tax passed in October 2019, is on the east side of U.S. 71, a few miles north of De Queen. The former hospital, which was owned by an out-of-state company, closed in 2019 after a series of financial setbacks.

The new hospital was scheduled to open Sept. 20, but construction delays pushed the date back.

Vandalism earlier this year at the site slowed construction of the hospital for a bit, but replacement materials were obtained fairly quickly, and officials announced it would not affect the opening date.

Thieves broke into the construction site and stole installed copper lines.

After the incident, hospital officials said additional security policies and safeguards were put into place to prevent future thefts from the construction site.