“Certificate of need” laws, largely supported by the hospital industry, limit health facility construction in 35 states and Washington, D.C. Georgia lawmakers decided its law was complicating the reviving of two hospitals critical to their communities.
Mayor Andre Dickens pledged to clear the encampments after numerous fires believed to have been set by unhoused people have damaged bridges and closed roadways in the city.
The former athletic club at Wellstar’s Atlanta Medical Center will become a temporary emergency shelter for unhoused residents, according to a report by the Atlanta Business Chronicle.
The review, by the American College of Surgeons, sets most standards for trauma care in the state. But standards, mostly in logistics, are missing across Georgia's 159 counties, especially south of Atlanta.
Democratic Georgia lawmakers, local officials and the NAACP are asking federal officials to investigate a health care system that closed hospitals in downtown Atlanta and a southern suburb. They claim Wellstar Health System has illegally discriminated against Black people and violated its tax-exempt status.
