SOUTH FULTON, Ga. — Debra Hemphill doesn't have time to waste, especially when it comes to her health. She lives one-and-a-half miles from the old Wellstar Atlanta Medical Center South site in East Point.
The facility stopped emergency services two years ago; then, it shut down altogether by January. Wellstar's AMC Downtown location closed in 2022 as well, leaving Southern Fulton County below I-20 without a hospital and other healthcare systems to pick up their patient load.
"I have Crohn's. I've been there for that," Hemphill said. "I had my youngest son there at that hospital, and I've had a couple surgeries there. I've taken neighbors there who don't have cars. It's stressful because now you're trying to figure out the economics of it. Do I have money to take my kids here? Do I need to Uber? Now it's a financial dynamic, and it's hurting our community."
Fulton County leaders held a town hall Thursday addressing the health disparities within the county. Dr. Lynn Paxton, Fulton County District Health Director, said inadequate hospital access only adds to the income and education disparities in Southern Fulton County.
"If you need to get emergency care, you can wait up to three hours in South Fulton versus maybe 20 minutes or half an hour in North Fulton," Paxton said. “The way we can combat this is to bring more attention to it, to shine more light on the problem. This is not something the health department can do by itself, but we have to have everyone working together to go to these root causes, these social determinants of health."
A matter of miles can make the difference. A Fulton County and Morehouse School of Medicine report from 2023 shows life expectancy is five years lower on the south side and in the central part of Fulton County than the north side. The report revealed that there were significantly fewer specialists in the area. According to the report, the Southern Fulton County does not have a single cardiologist, pulmonologist or infectious disease specialist.
The report showed that the area is 91% non-white, and it is two to four times more likely to rely on Medicaid or have no insurance at all. Fulton County Commissioner Marvin Arrington, who represents district 5, has spearheaded efforts to get more medical care to his district. He said he would like to get at least five hospitals to Southern Fulton County to be on par with the north side of the county.
"But when it's an emergency care need, when you're having a heart attack or stroke, you don't want to have to drive 40 or 50 miles in order to get the care," Arrington said. "That may be the difference in someone being able to save your life or not. Healthcare is a universal need. Black, brown, white, male, female. Everyone needs quality healthcare and they need it close by.”
This week, Grady Health System announced it would build a new freestanding emergency room in Union City within two years. Wellstar sent 11Alive the following statement in response to that announcement:
"We transitioned urgent care services in that area to Southside Medical Center earlier this year. Metro Atlanta is home to numerous high-quality healthcare providers. We applaud the Fulton County leadership for working with Grady, the safety net provider for Fulton County, to expand emergency care to Union City and the surrounding communities.”
Last year, Fulton County agreed to add Morehouse School of Medicine as a designated healthcare provider, which could lead to more medical care in East Point. Arrington floated the idea of container or makeshift emergency rooms, but those would require adequate staffing, resources and funding.
To address the healthcare desert, Fulton County leaders said they aimed to reduce drive times to care, increase telehealth and virtual health services, get more patients insured and increase the number of local minority healthcare workers.