The Liberty County Hospital Authority has its go-ahead from Hinesville City Council to build a wound care center.

Council members approved rezoning two tracts of land, one on which a wound care center will be built, at their meeting Thursday. The hospital authority asked for a rezoning of 1.89 acres along E.G. Miles Parkway and Schoolhouse Road.

“We proposed this site to bring more services to the community,” said David Barnes, LRMC facilities director.

The property will be rezoned from R-3 single- family dwelling to O-C (office and commercial). The hospital authority plans to extend an existing dead-end road on the Liberty Regional Medical Center parking lot’s west side to the wound care facility. The primary access to the facility will be through the current hospital entrance. The road off the parking lot’s west side will be extended to connect with Schoolhouse Road.

The wound care center will have a hyperbaric chamber, to treat exposed wounds that need oxygen therapy.

“That shows we are growing,” LRMC CEO Tammy Mims said at the recent countywide planning retreat, “and we are expanding services for the needs of the community. We have a lot of diabetes and a lot of wounds that are not being treated.”

A second rezoning of .73 acres from a R-3 to a R-4 two-family dwelling will allow the hospital to build a duplex to house traveling medical personnel.

“This will give us better access to our physicians who are on call, and also ones who coming in to work a 24-hour shift,” Barnes said. “They’ll be on campus, and this will greatly help when we need them. I think it will be an advantage for us to have this.”

The proposed size is 1,200 square feet for each side, and each will have a kitchenette.

“We think it will help the community to have someone close by,” Barnes said.

The house currently on the tract will be torn down.