Calhoun County residents say they will be left with few options for quality health care if officials go through with a decision to halt emergency and inpatient services at a hospital in Anniston.
Regional Medical Center Health System, one of the largest healthcare providers in northeast Alabama, announced last week that it will shut down inpatient services and move the emergency department at Stringfellow Memorial Hospital in Anniston to RMC’s main hospital about a mile away.
Stringfellow, which has 125 beds compared to RMC Hospital’s 338, will transition to an urgent care clinic. RMC Health System bought Stringfellow in 2017 for $25 million.
Stringfellow will continue to provide emergency care and scheduled surgeries until the transition is complete. Officials said the merger could take up to a year.
The transition comes as dozens of hospitals across the state face risk of closure. In 2018, RMC closed its 104-bed hospital in nearby Jacksonville just five years after purchasing it.
‘No one has any choices’
Some residents said the closure of Stringfellow’s emergency department would place an unnecessary burden on an already strained healthcare system, and force patrons to drive miles to get emergency care.
Grant Whittle told AL.com that he had to wait nearly all day in the RMC Hospital emergency room to be treated for a life-threatening infection two years ago. When his wife recently broke her foot, they decided to drive 45 minutes away to seek care.
“Closure of Stringfellow ER certainly won’t help resolve this,” he told AL.com.
Alexandria resident Nicole Rice has been a patron at Stringfellow for nearly 12 years. She told AL.com that the staff have provided expert care in treating her husband’s rare blood disorder, compared to the long wait times they experienced at RMC.
A CT scan or MRI could take months to get scheduled, she said.
“You’ve got stage four cancer patients that could already be getting treatment if they could get the imaging that they needed done,” she said. “And that is just mind-blowing, that they expect to service the community with that little amount of resources.”
Rice said she’d rather drive an hour to UAB Medical Center now that Stringfellow may no longer be an option for the kind of care her husband needs.
But that’s not something everyone can do, she said.
“So this leaves them with one option,” she said. “No one has any choices any more.”
What is changing? What will happen to staff?
In a news release Friday, RMC officials called the changes a “transformative journey” meant to improve healthcare in the region.
“The transition is about putting patients first and ensuring everyone has the access to the care they need,” Louis Bass, president and CEO of RMC, said in the news release.
RMC-owned facilities employ more than 1,900 employees and over 200 physicians, according to the health system.
“We are confident that these efforts are going to optimize the operations of our facilities and provide a better experience for our patients, physicians and employees,” read the statement from Bass. “Redistributing our resources in this way will also allow us to invest in updated technology, new healthcare services and new models of care – it’s exciting to think about the possibilities.”
Bass said the move will allow staff to improve scheduling, patient triage and data tracking practices at RMC’s existing emergency department. He said it will also create more opportunities for collaboration between the two campuses.
According to the health system’s most recent tax filing, RMC saw more than 52,000 emergency patients in the 2022 fiscal year.
In a statement to AL.com, Bass said the department recently created two “fast track treatment areas” located inside and near the emergency room.
“We are confident that by merging our two ERs and transitioning the Stringfellow campus ER to an urgent care center we will be able to better utilize our combined resources to further improve all aspects of the ER as well as the in-hospital care,” Bass said in response to questions about the quality of care at RMC. “Treating patients in the proper location and enhanced provider and staff availability are key factors of this transition that will result in an even better patient experience.”
What’s next?
The two hospitals are near each other. And it’s not yet clear if RMC and Stringfellow will end up as one facility.
Alabama law requires all hospital campuses to own the land between each of its premises. Nothing can separate the campus other than a public right of way.
The state health department granted officials a temporary waiver in early March essentially allowing the two hospitals to be treated as one facility, even though they are roughly a mile apart.
Hospital officials told the state health department that they plan to operate a shuttle between the two locations several times a day, or as requested, and they are currently waiting on the city to sign off on an easement on a sidewalk running alongside the two campuses.
In the meantime, it remains unclear how the shift will affect potential partnerships with other health systems.
Both hospitals could end up under the UAB umbrella.
In February, the Healthcare Authority of Anniston, which governs RMC, announced an intent to affiliate with UAB. The organizations planned to finalize an agreement in the summer. Bass said conversations with the college are ongoing.
“We will have more information to share in the weeks ahead, but right now it’s important to know that nothing is changing today,” Bass told AL.com. “This transition will take place over the course of the year and we’re being very intentional with our transition planning and look forward to keeping our community informed as we make progress.”