By day, it is the bustling epicenter of 21 st century healthcare for Sumter and surrounding counties. Like no other small hospital in the state or nation, it offers the most advanced diagnostic and care technologies in the industry. Phoebe Sumter has been widely recognized for its facility design and its environmental sensitivities.
Johnson is the marketing and public relations director for the new medical center. He had been with the Sumter County Hospital Authority for five years when the tornado struck the former hospital almost six years ago. That gave him a front row seat through the recovery process.
Today, our region is witness to the end, for the most part, of a cycle of pain and loss suffered when the storms tore across several counties in Southwest Georgia March 1, 2007. Americus was hardest hit. The hospital was a complete loss. Not only is it back — it's better than ever.
“Our story is not the average story,” says Johnson. “People have been following us, especially since the tornado on March 1, 2007. First, that kind of gives us an advantage of not being just another hospital. Second, we have the newest hospital in the state, the South, and possibly the U.S.
“[Five] years ago [when the former hospital was destroyed] a lot of the equipment was already obsolete so we might not have been able to replace all of it at once [without the tornado],” he says.
The Americus Sumter Hospital Authority, whose board had run the facility, was able to start from scratch. The silver lining on that stormy day: the Authority didn't have to worry about replacing equipment under normal conditions. Dealing with amortization schedules, cost justifications and returns on investment was certainly part of the process, but replacing the hospital trumped all those variables.
The situation in Americus was unprecedented, at the time, in terms of a hospital being completely destroyed.
“There was nothing to look back at for a road map,” Johnson explains.
The Authority leadership at the time, as well as the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Georgia Emergency Management Agency, searched for the correct path forward. All agreed that a hospital was necessary for Americus.
“It was determined early on that the hospital was needed here and that rebuilding was the best solution,” Johnson says, speaking of the days following the storm. “The biggest thing, the Authority was cash-strapped. They didn't lay anyone off and were still carrying the large payroll.”
Ultimately, more than 80 percent of the staff from the former hospital has been retained.
There were still bills to be paid. The Authority cashed in many of its bonds and that didn't leave the Authority with a lot of borrowing power,” Johnson reveals.
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