Amid Rural Hospital Crisis, One Georgia Hospital Thrives

Miller County Hospital in Colquitt, Georgia, has been able to survive by creating a niche service — ventilator care in its nursing home.

Elly Yu / WABE

Two years ago, David Roman Reyes was hanging out in his apartment in Fort Myers, Florida, when he started feeling sick.

“I was just doing normal stuff in the house, and I was getting ready to go to bed, and all of a sudden I had a tremendous feeling of chills — uncontrollable.”

Reyes called his neighbors, who then called an ambulance. The next thing he knew, he woke up three days later in a hospital, with a tracheal tube in his neck.