Gov. Brian Kemp joined officials from Grady Health System and Fulton County to break ground on a new Union City Emergency Department facility. When it opens, it will be Atlanta’s only 24/7 ER south of I-20. (Jess Mador/WABE)
Grady Health System broke ground Wednesday on a new, freestanding Emergency Department in south Fulton County.
Plans for the new Union City facility have been in the works for more than a year.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, health advocates and elected officials from across Fulton County gathered inside a party tent for a ceremony to celebrate the beginning of construction.
“This is not just a win for Union City, folks. This is a victory for the entire south side of the metro Atlanta area,” said Union City Mayor Vince Williams. “For far too long, our families have lived in a healthcare desert, traveling too far, waiting too long and suffering too much.”
When it opens to patients, the 20,000-square-foot facility will be Atlanta’s only 24/7 emergency department in Atlanta south of I-20.
“But today’s ceremony and this new emergency facility are also just a start because the big vision that we all have for this campus is ultimately to provide a full slate of medical services here in Union City,” said Kemp. “In an area of our state’s largest county that has been in need of ER like this for quite some time, Georgians will now have the access from one of these great freestanding emergency departments.”
Under an agreement announced last spring, the cost of the $38 million ER will be split between Fulton County and Grady, and include state and federal dollars.
The new facility will help relieve south metro residents from having to drive roughly at least 45 minutes to Atlanta in an emergency, or to hospitals south of Fulton County.
“Eliminating that travel time, which then reduce the risk that there’s a bad outcome, but it’ll also help decongest the main emergency department on the Grady campus,” Grady President and CEO John Haupert said.
A photograph of the now defunct Wellstar Atlanta Medical Center in Atlanta. (John Spink/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP)
Grady in Atlanta has seen a jump in patient volume since Wellstar Health System closed two full-service hospitals over the last few years — Atlanta Medical Center in the Old Fourth Ward, a Level 1 trauma center, followed by Atlanta Medical Center-South in East Point — citing unsustainable financial shortfalls.
Grady remains Atlanta’s only Level 1 trauma center.
“And the reason why we, in our planning with Fulton County, we came further south is because this is where the desert is,” said Haupert. “Minutes count in an emergency. That’s why we came this far.”
Following the AMC closures, Fulton County partnered with researchers from Morehouse School of Medicine and consulting firm Ernst and Young to study the healthcare disparities in the county.
“And what we found was that thousands of residents in south Fulton County did not have ready access to a hospital or physicians,” said Robb Pitts, chair of the Fulton County Board of Commissioners. “And the result of that was striking and amazing, to the extent that what we found was that the life expectancy of one living in South Fulton County compared to one living in North Fulton County was seven years.”
The new Union City Emergency Department will treat adults and children. It will also offer radiology, lab services and a pharmacy.
