Its good neighbor attitude has earned Georgia Baptist Meriwether Hospital and Nursing Home status as the cornerstone of community health care. Its position was strengthened when the hospital joined the Georgia Baptist Health Care System in 1996. The first year of its partnership brought $3.5 million in renovations and improvements that directly affect the quality of health care for patients and nursing home residents. The changes included the addition of bathrooms to each inpatient room, new furnishings and state-of-the-art medical technology. An emergency room physician group was contracted to provide emergency medical care 24 hours a day, seven days a week to the hospital’s emergency room.

The 38-bed Georgia Baptist Meriwether Hospital and its 79-bed nursing home serve 35,000 people living in Meriwether, Talbot and Harris counties. In 1998, the hospital complex was estimated to have a $13 million economic impact on the community.

To continue providing the community with needed health care services, Georgia Baptist Meriwether has future plans for a $3.2 million, 8,500 square-foot hospital addition that will be completed in 2000. This addition will include a new emergency department, an obstetric department with birthing suites, a diagnostic center, a modern admitting department, many improvements in surgical technology and a renovated lobby with a chapel. The radiology department will receive a new CT scan, laboratory services will be expanded and a respiratory therapy department will be added.

During the last three years, physician recruitment has been one of Georgia Baptist Meriwether’s priorities. As a result, many residents who previously were without a local physician now use the newly opened family practice clinics in neighboring Greenville and Luthersville. In 1999, the hospital hired Meriwether County’s first full-time pediatrician. The hospital’s agreements with specialty physicians from surrounding areas have brought specialty health care to the area. The physicians have weekly office hours in a professional office building on hospital grounds. Among the hospital’s 22 physicians, there are specialists in family practice, internal medicine, obstetrics, gynecology, general surgery, plastic surgery, anesthesiology, endoscopy, radiology, pathology, orthopedics and podiatry. In addition to inpatient services, both elective surgery and other outpatient services are provided.

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