Cuthbert hospital officials get hope in fight to re-open facility that closed in 2020

CUTHBERT – While bipartisanship often seems as elusive nowadays as a polka-dotted unicorn, the distress of a small southwest Georgia town whose hospital closed nearly four years ago has rallied help from elected officials from Cuthbert to Washington, D.C.

When the Randolph County Hospital closed in October 2020, it was a huge blow for the community as well as part of a trend that saw nearly 20 rural hospitals close nationwide during the same year.

“It’s been devastating to our community,” Randolph County Hospital Commission Chairman Steve Whatley said. “There’s no other way to put it. It’s put a lot of pressure on our EMS because every (emergency) call is an out-of-town call.”

The county, which has a population of about 6,400, has only one ambulance crew on duty per shift, and when they have to transport a patient to a hospital in another city, that means that fire department personnel with medical training or emergency medical service personnel from a nearby county have to cover emergencies in their absence.

Since the closure of the hospital, finding a way to reverse that outcome has been first and foremost on the minds of community leaders and residents.

“This is something that’s been going on since the day it closed,” Whatley said. “We’re certainly appreciative of our congressman and both our senators and state Sen. Freddie Powell Sims and (state) Rep. Gerald Greene. It’s a fantastic effort.”

The hospital authority is in line to receive $11.8 million in funding, which would be sufficient to complete the extensive renovations needed for the existing hospital building, Whatley said. The authority also has applied for a loan through the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Now the group is awaiting the results of a feasibility study on a critical access hospital model and a second study looking at the feasibility of a rural emergency hospital model. The model selected will determine what equipment and staffing will be needed.

“We obviously can’t open up with the same mode we had before because it’s not supportable,” Whatley said. “We’ve got to come up with a mode that (provides) a cash flow and can sustain itself.

“It’s going to take some serious consideration. This is not something we’re taking lightly. Whatever we do, it’s got to stay here.”

The results from the studies should be back in about three weeks.

“We feel like we have an opportunity we haven’t had since we closed,” Whatley said of the financial lifeline that has been offered.

The chance to re-open the facility was made possible by language contained in the Certificate of Need legislation that passed both houses in the Georgia legislature during the recently completed session.

“We had to get some language in the CON bill,” Greene said. “It had to say in there that a hospital could re-open if it’s been closed for more than 12 months. That has been a real blessing to us that we were working to try to get this done.”

There is a lot to do to take advantage of the opportunity provided, the Cuthbert representative said.

“We’ve still got a long way to go,” Greene said. “We’ve still got a lot of work to do, but it’s looking pretty good. We’ve been working on that emergency room and everything for four years. It’s looking a lot better now.”

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