SouthWest Atlanta Hospital Shuts Down - AGAIN

AJC: Southwest Atlanta Hospital shuts down … again

A historic Atlanta hospital, citing the credit crunch, announced Friday that it would close, the third time it has shut down in the past four years.

Southwest Atlanta Hospital had already shuttered its emergency room and had been operating only an urgent-care center since the fall. The closing was scheduled for Friday evening.

The hospital’s current owner, Georgia Medical Provider Financial Corp., said in a statement that it was unable to obtain funding to revive the facility. Southwest was seeking to become a hospital specializing in surgical services.

“We’re operating in an economic environment that’s unlike any this nation has seen in recent memory,” said Sandra Crayton, Southwest’s CEO, in a statement. “We simply could not obtain the credit we needed to stay on the path of rebuilding Southwest Hospital.”

The closure reflects the tougher financial climate facing hospitals. The recession has brought more uninsured patients — who often can’t pay medical bills — into metro Atlanta hospitals while decreasing the facilities’ number of elective surgeries, according to the Georgia Hospital Association.

Meanwhile, hospitals have confronted tighter credit markets. Piedmont Healthcare, for example, recently announced it was suspending construction of a new hospital in Newnan, blaming the instability of the debt market.

Southwest will not have to move patients to other hospitals because its current services are outpatient.

The facility had 50 employees.

Southwest has filed for bankruptcy protection twice. At the time of its first filing, in 2004, the 125-bed hospital’s financial problems had stemmed largely from low reimbursements for care. Most patients were uninsured, underinsured, or in government programs Medicaid and Medicare.

The hospital, built in 1964 by a Catholic group, grew deep roots in southwest Atlanta. Southwest was one of only a few hospitals in the United States that were controlled or operated by African-Americans.

The 65-acre campus is close to the intersection of I-20 and I-285 near the affluent Cascade Road area. But hospital leaders said at the time of its first closing, in 2005, that many area residents with private insurance went to other hospitals for care.

Crayton said she was not giving up on resurrecting the hospital. “This is a sad event, but it doesn’t necessarily mean there’s no hope for Southwest to be revived later, when the economic environment becomes stronger,” she said.

What was more permissible in 1964 to allow the hospital to open that is not present in 2008/2009? There are hundreds of upper income African-Americans living within a small perimeter of this hospital. Some of these same people glowed over how much money they sent out of their community into the OBAMA CAMPAIGN. Where are they when their own community needs them? Too many of them drive past their OWN facility and support Piedmont Hospital, Crawford Long Hospital or Northside Hospital. They don't LIVE on the "northside". They live in Southwest Atlanta.

The loss of this hospital is a loss to the community as a whole. The extra minutes that it will take for an ambulance to arrive as the new "closest hospital" will mean life or death just as the recent closure of Fire Station #7 has been argued to be.