A rural south Georgia hospital authority is challenging a 2022 state law that barred local officials from suing opioid manufacturers and distributors.
The hospital authority of Wayne County filed its federal lawsuit seeking damages in the spring of 2019 for the strain put on the Wayne Memorial Hospital in Jesup, which is about 40 miles northwest of Brunswick.
Wayne County, which is home to about 31,000 people, had an opioid-involved overdose rate – 23 per 100,000 – that was higher than the state average of 16.8 in 2021, according to the most recent annual report compiled by the state Department of Public Health. It also had a higher-than-average number of emergency room visits for opioid overdoses that year.
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