Wellstar and AU Health leadership provided a tour and media briefing at the new hospital under construction in Columbia County.
The six-floor, 254,000 square foot hospital is being built off Interstate 20 exit 190, just below the Columbia County Exhibition Center. It remains on track to open from late August to early September.
In addition to providing healthcare, the hospital and surrounding complex can act as a magnet to draw new businesses to Columbia County. The hospital itself will add about 1,200 jobs.
“We have 300-plus staff already hired. We need about 500 some odd more open,” Ralph Turner, President of Wellstar MCG Health (top photo to right). “We have a ton of doctors already on staff. They’re downtown getting familiar with Wellstar, running the Wellstar culture, working with the folks at Augusta University to get a good understanding of how we operate.”
He added that the hospital will be a full-service facility.
“We have medical and surgical specialties. We have dental surgery available. There’ll be an emergency department. We have women’s health services for a clinic,” he said. “We will provide over 100 beds. We will open with 16 ICU beds and 50 med-surg beds.”
The emergency department will have 17 emergency bays, two trauma rooms, and two acute care rooms. The goal is to become a level two trauma center, which will take three to five years to achieve. The MCG hospital in downtown Augusta is a level one trauma center.
The new hospital can also serve as a training ground for nursing and medical students.
“What this facility does for us in our community is say that we’ve got a place for you to train,” explained Dr. Russell Keen, President of Augusta University. “I think it’s an opportunity for us and our nursing students, our allied health, our medical students, to train here. We know it’s a fact that if individuals go to school here at the Medical College of Georgia, if they achieve their graduate medical education here, over 70% likely to stay here, and that’s exactly what we need to do.”
Turner anticipates they will schedule job fairs to fill the remaining open positions.
It took seven years before what was then Georgia Regents Medical Center (GRMC) won a court fight to build a hospital in Columbia County.
In 2014, GRMC, University Hospital, now Piedmont Augusta, and Doctors Hospital each filed a Certificate of Need (CON) with the Georgia Department of Community Health (DCH).
When DCH selected GRMC, University and Doctors appealed the decision, triggering a lengthy court battle. University dropped its appeal, but Doctors Hospital continued, reaching the Georgia Supreme Court. In 2021, the court declined to hear the case, effectively upholding DCH’s initial ruling.
“Twelve years of a dream that began in serving this community better, and I think that a lot of people are being congratulated and thanked for this, from the Columbia County Commission to those who served on the Board of Regents, the governor, the General Assembly, and all who have been involved in bringing this to fruition,” said Keen.
In addition to the hospital, an office building to provide medical office space is also under construction at the site.
