![]() She sees between 30 and 40 patients four days a week, many from surrounding counties and Alabama. Karen Kinsell is the lone doctor in Clay County, one of the poorest counties in the state, with a population of 2,882. Shortages, the uninsured, the perfect storm “We've got a first-class school system and we wanted a first-class hospital that would match that.” The hospital is slated to open in three years, Harris said. “The two major questions that they ask when a company looks at your area is what is the healthcare and what is the education?” said Chuck Harris, commissioner in Catoosa County, which plans to break ground this summer on a state-of-the-art hospital that will also serve Walker and Dade counties. The 25-bed, recently renovated acute care hospital, which also offers outpatient and routine medical resources, serves primarily Taliaferro, Wilkes and Lincoln counties, with a total population of about 18,820, according to the 2021 U.S. In some cases, hospitals have grown out of this need, like Wills Memorial Hospital in Washington, Georgia. According to the State Office of Rural Health, a division of the Georgia Department of Community Health, there are a total of 59 hospitals across 120 counties in the state classified as rural.Ī sudden, severe illness or even routine checkups can mean traveling hours and miles to a doctor or hospital. The population shift has meant rural communities such as Echols County (population 3,699), Heard County (population 11,565) and Webster County (population 2,372) have to contend with no hospital or federally qualified health center. Roughly 6 in 10 Georgians live in the 29 counties in and around Atlanta, according to the U.S. Over the last 20 years, the state’s population has shifted to bigger towns or metro areas. If you are one of the 2.75 million people living in rural or medically-underserved Georgia, you already know you’re living in a medical desert. Have doctor, will travelĪccess to reliable health care in Georgia largely depends on where you live. While Republican and Democratic lawmakers agree that Georgia’s rural health care system needs fixing, they can’t seem to agree on how to fix it. “These actions will withhold tens of millions from the state’s ailing health care system and safety net,” noted Danny Kanso, GBPI’s director of legislative strategy and senior fiscal analyst and author of the report. The total number of vetoes and disregards involving health care alone amounts to over $104 million, or 41% overall. Of the roughly $255 million in Kemp’s non-binding budget disregards and line-item vetoes, the majority of those cuts will reduce funding for health and education programs and services, the Georgia Budget and Policy Institute (GBPI) said in a report released this week. Brian Kemp’s recent vetoes and disregards in the signed fiscal year 2024 budget. Health and human services is the second-largest expense for the state, accounting for about 24%, or $7.8 billion, of Georgia’s $32.4 billion fiscal year 2024 budget. Meanwhile, rural Georgia’s health care challenges aren’t lost on state lawmakers. Some 65 counties have no pediatrician 82 counties don’t have an OB-GYN 40 counties have no internal medicine doctor and 90 counties don’t have a psychiatrist, according to the Georgia Department of Community Health. “I would really love to see that change and if they can't change it, then they really need to allow midwives and doulas to practice.”Įighteen of Georgia’s 159 counties have no family medicine doctor, according to Kyle Wingfield, president and CEO of Georgia Public Policy Foundation and author of “ Addressing Georgia’s Healthcare Shortage.” Georgia has some of the worst maternal health in the United States,” Pence said. ![]() “I would really love to see them put an emphasis on maternal health. There also are no emergency medical doctors in Walker County, home to about 69,000 mostly white residents and the famed tourist attraction Lookout Mountain. With no OB-GYN and one pediatrician in Walker County, Pence has to go to nearby Catoosa County for those basic health care services. To have her baby in Georgia, “I would have had to go an hour south.” “Up here where I’m at, there is no other option other than going across the line to Tennessee,” said Pence, who lives in the northwest Georgia mountain town of Chickamauga, population 3,070. Five of her nine children, aged 5 months to 13 years, were born in Chattanooga. ![]() Walker County resident Angela Pence’s contractions were three minutes apart when she and husband Dan drove 30 minutes to a hospital in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where their daughter was born last December. ![]() Editor's note: This is the first in a series of stories looking at the lack of health care in areas of rural Georgia and how providers and lawmakers are dealing with the issue. ![]()
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