Commissioners to consider $900 million hospital plan in south Fulton County

The resolution describes the effort as a direct response to the 2022 closures of Atlanta Medical Center South in the city of East Point and the Atlanta Medical Center in the Old Fourth Ward neighborhood. The losses of those two Wellstar Health System facilities, according to the document, triggered, “a public health emergency that left hundreds of thousands of residents without access to critical health care services.”

Wednesday’s vote would set the table for a new facility in partnership with Grady Health System and the Fulton-DeKalb Hospital Authority, said board of commissioners chair Robb Pitts.

“I am proud the day has come to make official my promise to build a first-class hospital for the people of south Fulton,” Pitts said in a Friday news release. “This is a major step to advancing health equity and remedying the health disparities between north and south Fulton County.”

Pitts did not respond to a request for comment Saturday, nor did other board members, the FDHA or Grady.

The resolution proposes the county would pay up to $300 million for the project, sourced from “legally available funds,” bonds or revenue certificates. The rest of the money would have to be covered by Grady and private philanthropy, it states. Grady also would need to agree to pay for any cost overruns in order for the county to continue pursuing the proposed facility, the resolution says.

Following the two recent hospital closures, Fulton County partnered with the Morehouse School of Medicine to conduct a study called “Project Care.” The review determined south Fulton is a health care desert, with poor health outcomes in central and south Fulton driven in part by limited access to facilities. Remaining hospitals in the county have had to take on a surge of new patients, and the study found wait times exceed national standards.

Construction of a freestanding emergency room in Union City began last spring and is expected to be completed this year. While that should help the overwhelmed emergency rooms that have had to take on extra patients, the facility will not include regular hospital beds. The initial $39 million building costs were paid for by the county and Grady, which utilized some federal grants it was awarded during the pandemic, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution previously reported.

If Wednesday’s resolution passes, it could be the first step toward getting a full hospital back in the area.

“When hospitals close, it means longer travel times for care, added strain on emergency services, and fewer options for families who need timely treatment,” said Bianca Motley Broom, the mayor of College Park, a city in south Fulton. “Increasing hospital capacity on the Southside would improve access to care and strengthen the health and stability of our entire region.”

A spokesperson for the city of Atlanta confirmed Saturday the hospital plan under county consideration is not connected to a proposed $800 million health venture dubbed “Project Robin,” about which little is known. The AJC reported in October the city has considered a plan to put $115 million of Beltline tax allocation district revenue toward that project.