EAST POINT, Ga. — Residents in the southern part of the metro area say it makes no sense they don’t have their own hospital.
A local councilman thinks he has a solution.
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East Point Councilman Joshua Butler IV wants to revive a hospital that stopped providing emergency services earlier this year. Butler wants to get Atlanta Medical Center South on Cleveland Avenue back to being a full-scale hospital, and he wants to create a hospital authority board to oversee it.
Channel 2′s Tom Jones talked to former patients of the old WellStar Atlanta Medical Center South who say they miss it tremendously.
“When I had pneumonia, I came here,” Larry Zanders said outside of the facility. “I was born here,” said Anquisha Hardy.
They say the hospital downgrading to a health center and urgent care with no emergency services leaves the area without a full-scale hospital, which endangers those who live in the area.
“What happens to the people that can’t get downtown or get to Southern Regional?” Zanders asked. “If anything was to really happen to someone right here,... it would be hectic for them to get help,” Hardy pointed out.
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“We have a hospital desert,” Councilman Butler proclaimed. He says it makes no sense for cities in south metro not to have their own hospital. He says it’s a matter of life and death.
“Try getting from East Point to Grady at 5 o’clock during rush hour when you’ve had a stroke or heart attack,” he said.
The councilman said there are 200,000 people who live in the area who don’t have access to a full-scale hospital within 10 miles. He says there are 60 hotels that aren’t close to a hospital.
This lack of emergency services is why he is proposing southern cities like East Point, South Fulton and others join together to create a hospital authority board, much like Fulton and DeKalb counties have done with Grady Hospital. The board would work to access funds to reopen AMC South. Butler is holding a town hall meeting to discuss this issue.
“We’re going to give the public a clear picture of how a hospital authority can solve this problem,” he said.
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Hardy was not only born at AMC South, she has also been a patient there along with several family members. She says she’s all for any idea that will get the hospital back open and accepting emergency patients.
“I would love to see that. Yeah, definitely from a hospital that I was born at,” she stated.
Butler is holding a town hall meeting Wednesday night at East Point City Hall to discuss this issue. He says the proposed board would seek state, federal and private funds to get the hospital open. The meeting is from 6 to 7:30 p.m.
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