Welcome to ZZ Sumter Regional Hospital

Finding the silver lining under a cloud of destruction

By Fauve Holihan
c. 2007, Cherokee Ledger-News

On March 1 of this year, an F-3 (read: incredibly dangerous/deadly) tornado hit Sumter Regional Hospital, a 143-bed not-for-profit healthcare facility that served a large patient base throughout 10 counties in rural southwest Georgia.

What was a community hospital moments before 9:26 p.m. that night suddenly morphed into something nearly unrecognizable. According to Susie Fussell, SRH's vice president of nursing services, her place of employment looked more like a site where an atomic bomb had been dropped.

Law enforcement officials from all over the region – including a contingent from here in Cherokee County – arrived to assist in keeping the peace. At times like that, people from nearly four hours away -- about the time it takes to drive between Americus and Woodstock -- become as important as next-door neighbors.

The group from Cherokee who volunteered their time and effort stand as a shining example of the goodness that can come to the rescue when there is a need. Theirs was no small effort.

Others who showed up – mostly the media, curiosity-seekers and folks who just wanted to help somehow – could only gawk at the destruction from a distance.

Shortly afterwards, basic medical care, mostly in the form of triage, was being performed under quickly-constructed tents in the parking lot of what used to be an outpatient diagnostic center just down the street from the hospital. The hospital and medical staff worked tirelessly and selflessly in order to return some of the more basic medical functions back to an operational state.

It has been six months since I last wrote about Sumter Regional. Today, I can offer up some information to the many kind and caring readers who wrote to ask how they could help.

First, the good news: A new hospital will be built. Soon, demolition on the old structure will begin, as will construction on a new state-of-the-art facility that is expected to open its doors sometime in 2010. In the meantime, an interim facility, currently under construction and expected to open in November, will serve the public.
Now, the challenging news: Despite financial commitments from the hospital's insurer and FEMA, Sumter Regional Hospital will be responsible for a deficit of about $12 million, even if the number of beds in the new facility is fewer than the original count of 143.

For your average professional athlete, $12 million is a season's salary. For a non-profit healthcare facility that serves an economically depressed area, $12 million is an enormous sum.

The Sumter Regional Hospital Foundation has an incredible mountain to climb, in order to fill such a monetary gap, and will apply for as many grants and philanthropic gifts as possible, while also relying on the generosity of individuals throughout the state and country.

Fortunately, the residents of Americus show its support of the hospital's fundraising and rebuilding efforts by wearing “SRH: Indestructible” t-shirts, which can be purchased via the SRH Web site.

Finally, the incredible news: Words do not do justice to what I saw when I toured the facility last month. There are entire brick walls missing, most noticeably in the Labor and Delivery wing, where new mothers and their babies were located seconds before the tornado slammed into the building. There are places where hallways just…end. Twisted metal and holes where windows used to be are the norm. There is glass, fiberglass and debris everywhere.

The devastation left no floor or room untouched – except for the hospital chapel, where somehow the stained glass window remained intact and the bible sitting on its podium was still opened to the page that had been read by the last person in that room.

There was no wind or water damage in the SRH chapel. It remained a place of serenity.

Fauve Holihan, a columnist for the Cherokee Ledger-News, is a writer and public relations professional. If you would like to make a tax-deductible donation or see photos and videotape of the damage at Sumter Regional Hospital, visit www.sumterregional.org.

US Patent Numbers 7,720,998 B2, 7,836,207