The affiliation ends Sept. 30, 364 days after it began. “After serious deliberation, Orlando Health has decided to release Lakeland Regional Health from our health system in exchange for significant financial and strategic consideration, effective Sept. 30,” Orlando Health spokeswoman Kena Lewis told Orlando Business Journal. “Orlando Health looks forward to expanding our interests and developing new opportunities in Polk County.”

Lakeland Regional board chair Laura Hawley said they separation will have no effect on patients. “This new direction will have no impact on our ability to deliver high quality services and we remain more committed than ever to the patients and communities in and surrounding Polk County,” Laura Hawley, board chairman of the Lakeland Regional Medical Center/Health System, said in a prepared statement quoted in The Ledger.

LakelandMom.com’s April Mucci took an advance tour of Lakeland Regional Health’s Carol Jenkins Barnett Pavilion for Women & Children, which opens next week, and shares a parent’s perspective on the eight-floor facility.

Lindsey Jones, who grew up in Lakeland, plans to open Polk County’s first medical marijuana dispensary in the strip shopping at U.S. 98 North and Griffin Road in mid-July.