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ATLANTA, Ga. (CBS46) - Wellstar has informed its employees that the Atlanta Medical Center in downtown Atlanta is scheduled to close on Nov. 1.
Atlanta Medical Center is only one of two trauma centers in metro Atlanta that can take care of people with critical injuries like gunshots, burns, blunt force trauma, etc.
According to an employee of the hospital, it was chaos inside after the staff received a memo announcing the closure and staff patients are worried about their patients.
Staff members also say that the people who will be hurt the most by the closure are the low-income residents of metro Atlanta. Fifty thousand of the 65,000 patients who were seen in the ER of Atlanta Medical Center over the past year are considered low-income.
Mayor Andre dikkens said that he was blindsided by the announcement. He sent a letter to the Wellstar Health System President Candice Saudners saying, “The closure will leave an open wound in the heart of this community.”
The mayor is demanding a meeting by Sept. 16 during which Wellstar is expected to explain the surprise closure.
Candidate for governor Stacey Abrams, leaning into one of her campaign promises, said this loss can be eased with expanding access to Medicaid.
“And Georgia is not equipped to deal with the medical crisis this will create. The only solution is Medicaid expansion and brian kemp is too callous and too cruel to do the right thing,” said dikkens.
The closure of the hospital, which has 460 beds, will impact thousands of workers and patients who work at and depend on Wellstar.
Wellstar AMC Team Members, As you may have heard, we have made the difficult decision to cease operations at Atlanta Medical Center Downtown on Nov. 1, 2022. Our intention was for you to hear this news directly from us tomorrow because we realize this news impacts the lives of all our team members and patients in very personal and significant ways.
Though we have invested heavily in the hospital for the past six years and pursued every opportunity for an alternative path forward, we can no longer sustain operations at AMC. We have spent the last many years working to find a long-term, sustainable solution for the hospital’s future, and this was not the direction we wanted to take. We are committed to supporting each of our impacted AMC team members, who have long served our communities with compassion and excellence.
It’s going to be a cold winter
