sentences:  By the late 1970s, Canonsburg Hospital had outgrown its red-brick Barr Street home, and in 1979 the hospital applied to the Pennsylvania Department of Health to build a new hospital.At the time in Pennsylvania, new hospital construction had to be approved by the state through a “certificate of need.” The application for a certificate of need was initially rejected by the state on the grounds that existing hospitals in the area had enough capacity to handle projected patient volume, but Canonsburg-area residents lobbied then-Pennsylvania Gov.Dick Thornburgh with “more than 5,000 letters [and] 2,000 mail-grams demanding the department approve the project.”
  
  In 1981, the Health Department issued a certificate of need, and a new hospital was built in North Strabane Township, just outside of Canonsburg borough.