Southwest Atlanta Hospital tries again

Metro Atlanta

Southwest Atlanta Hospital tries again

At Southwest Atlanta Hospital, the doors are open, doctors and nurses stand at their stations, but there are virtually no patients in the rooms, and the halls and intensive care units are silent.

Sam Bivins, director of radiology, walks an empty hallway of Southwest Atlanta Hospital. The hospital reopened last month with new owners after twice closing in three years. On the day of this photo, it had one patient.

Sam Bivins cleans the CAT scan equipment. After two bankruptcies and several lawsuits, the historically black hospital is again trying to win the faith of a community that has largely abandoned it.

Nurse Myron DuBose (left) and CEO Sandra Crayton stand ready. Georgia Medical Provider Financial Corp. purchased the hospital last year after the prior owners, a group of local doctors and investors, declared bankruptcy.

The six-floor facility is operating on one floor and has reduced its 125 beds to about 20. The hospital is not listed when you call information assistance. Virtually all the 75 staff members are contract workers.

The hospital occupies 65 acres in southwest Atlanta just south of the intersection of I-20 and I-285.

The courtyard of the hospital. The hospital closed in January 2005, unable to meet payroll. More than a thousand people attended a rally to save it that year.

Laboratory technician Stanford Hollister shows the Abbott AXSYM, a machine for drug monitoring.

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Sam Bivins, director of radiology, walks an empty hallway of Southwest Atlanta Hospital. The hospital reopened last month with new owners after twice closing in three years. On the day of this photo, it had one patient.

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