An illustration shows the entrance of the new Leon L. Haley Jr. Trauma and Emergency Center at UF Health Jacksonville. | UF Health Jacksonville
Published on November 21, 2024 at 2:54 pm
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UF Health Jacksonville broke ground Thursday on an expanded trauma center named for former CEO Leon L. Haley Jr.
Among those at a ceremonial groundbreaking were Haley’s parents.
Haley was brought to UF Health Jacksonville in 2017 as the dean of the University of Florida’s College of Medicine in Jacksonville. He was named the hospital’s first Black CEO in 2018.
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Haley was 56 when he died in July 2021 after he was thrown from a personal watercraft in the Palm Beach Inlet.
The $90 million Leon L. Haley Jr. Emergency and Trauma Center will expand the trauma center’s 78 beds to 125. The first phrase should take 18 months to complete.
“We have been serving thousands upon thousands of patients and trauma visits annually for countless years, and we have outgrown it, quite frankly,” current CEO Patrick Green told Jacksonville Today.
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The area’s only Level 1 trauma center “needs an upgrade; it needs to be renovated,” he said. “If you think about the growth in the city of Jacksonville, people still unfortunately have a need for emergency medicine and trauma, so this new facility will bring this facility up to represent the extraordinary world class care that takes place already.”
Haley’s parents noted that Nov. 6 would have been their son’s 60th birthday. They said they never realized when he grew up in Pittsburgh that he would be honored with his name on a hospital.
“He was so involved in emergency medicine, but I never thought it would result in this kind of facility,” said his father, Leon Haley Sr. “But most importantly, Leon was concerned about service and care, particularly those who were marginalized, outside the care system. So this facility will expand that care for people otherwise who would not get it. And so it touches our family very deeply.”
Haleny’s mother, Ann, said: “It is such an honor to have this building in his name, something that we are so very proud of. It doesn’t surprise us about Leon — he was always a special kid growing up. He was certainly dedicated to UF Health — he loved it here and even tried to get us to move here.”
UF Health’s history
UF Health Jacksonville’s history dates to the late 1800s, when it was what eventually became the Duval Medical Center.
The hospital was renamed University Hospital in 1971 after affiliating with the University of Florida. It ultimately started the state’s first Level I trauma center in 1983. In 1999, it became UF Health Shands as it operates in city-owned buildings.
Gov. Ron DeSantis announced $80 million in state funding for the project in 2022, joined by $10 million in city funding. The renovation and expansion will allow the trauma center and emergency room to help 125,000 patients per year, said Morteza Hosseini, chairman of the UF Board of Trustees.
“This community needs it, and it should have it,” Hosseini said Thursday. “It strengthens our ability to serve the community while creating new opportunities for medical students, residents and faculty to learn and innovate at the highest level.”
The hospital is one of seven Level 1 trauma centers in the state. Green said it was always Haley’s dream to expand its services.
Many who spoke at the groundbreaking remembered Green’s passion to help the underserved. When he died, many of those who knew him helped guide the naming of the new center, and that “warms your heart,” Green said.
“He was a force of nature, an inspiration for this organization, for this community, and he always put others before himself. And so it is only right that what we did for us, that we name this facility after him,” Green said. “His friends, his family, his community — they rallied together and decided to be an advocate with the support of the city and the state to make this happen.”
The first phase of the expanded center will include 53 new beds as well as adult and pediatric waiting areas as part of the additional 35,000 square feet.
Phases 2 through 5 will renovate the existing 41,500-square-foot emergency room, including new diagnostic equipment, radiology section and behavioral health space.
The hospital also plans to bring a UF Health Mobile Stroke Treatment Unit to the campus for faster stroke diagnosis and therapy administration, officials said.
