When Ashley Stankus’ son had a seizure at school last year, the closest emergency department was about 17 miles away.
Traffic from the city of South Fulton to downtown Atlanta made her child’s ambulance ride even longer.
His case wasn’t critical. But as a mother to an 11-year-old with autism, epilepsy and a moderate intellectual disability, having access to healthcare is essential.
“We always have to hike it all the way to the north side of town,” Stankus told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in a phone interview.
On Tuesday, Grady Health System will open a freestanding emergency department, located about 7 miles from Stankus’ home. The facility, between South Fulton and Union City, will be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It’s part of a larger planned Grady South campus that will feature a hospital and medical office building, now under construction at the same location. That site also will include a Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta floor and other specialty medical offices.
Grady South is expected to cost more than $1 billion once the campus is fully developed. Funding includes $300 million in bond financing from Fulton County, along with contributions from Grady and philanthropy.
The southside of Fulton County has been a hospital desert for years, Grady and elected officials agree. In 2022, Wellstar Health System closed two hospitals, Atlanta Medical Center in Old Fourth Ward and Atlanta Medical Center South in East Point.
Credit: Jason Getz/AJC
Credit: Jason Getz/AJC
Anthony Saul, Grady’s president and chief operating officer, said the decision to open the Grady South emergency department was born out of necessity and a realization that locals were underserved.
For years, Grady’s downtown Atlanta location and Wellstar’s hospital in East Point were thought to be enough, Union City Mayor Vince Williams said. But as the area continues to grow, he said community members should not have to drive north of I-20 to access emergency medical care and hospitals.
“To be in an underserved community is extremely important because access to healthcare should not depend on your ZIP code, and that has been the challenge for south Fulton County for years,” Williams said. “This facility helps close that longstanding healthcare gap and ensures more residents have timely access to emergency services and medical professionals.”
How living in a hospital desert impacts families
Ty Mays Kelty, 48, was born at South Fulton Medical Center. That vital medical facility later became the Atlanta Medical Center in East Point. When that hospital closed, she said she felt defeated.
“My mother had a stroke five years ago, and that’s when I became hyper aware of the lack of health resources nearby,” she said. “You have a limited time to get to the hospital.”
She described Grady South’s freestanding emergency department, located at 5500 Campbellton Fairburn Road, as lifesaving. Her mother, who she explained was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease following the stroke, lives with her in the city of South Fulton. Though they still drive to the Emory Brain Health Center in Brookhaven and other places for palliative care, the new Grady site will only be about 25 minutes away.
When Sheila Emerson, 56, slipped on some water and had a “bad fall” at work in April, she was taken nearly 30 minutes away to the emergency facility at Piedmont Fayette Hospital. The Camp Creek Middle School teacher said she worries for her students, who she said could suffer an asthma attack or get injured during sports.
“It’s definitely convenient, definitely needed, and I think it’s going to really help those people that are in need, having to travel not so far,” she said about the new Grady South.
Since 2010, Stankus said she has made countless trips to Children’s Hughes Spalding Hospital, Children’s Arthur M. Blank Hospital and Piedmont Fayette for her son. Late last year, she said her son, whom she described as “mostly nonverbal,” was dealing with ear pain but unwilling to leave home in the middle of the night. She was forced to call a Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta nurse line but feels as though she would have driven to an emergency department if there was one nearby.
Even Williams, Union City’s mayor, had to drive his wife to Northside Hospital in Sandy Springs for what he called “major surgery” a few months ago. During emergencies, he said he’s had to consider Piedmont Fayette, Piedmont Newnan and Southern Regional Medical Center, which are about 12, 23 and 15 miles, respectively, from downtown Union City. The new emergency department is only about 7 miles northwest of Union City’s civic center, with its courthouse, post office and city hall.
Credit: Jason Getz/AJC
Credit: Jason Getz/AJC
In Fulton County, there are no hospitals below I-20. And though there are emergency facilities and hospitals in neighboring counties, Williams and Fulton Commissioner Marvin Arrington Jr., who represents much of that area, said overall healthcare options are lacking.
“This area is predominantly a minority community, and for far too long, those communities were always overlooked,” Williams said.
According to July 2024 census data, Fulton’s countywide population is nearly 45% Black and about 44% white. Areas of southern Fulton County — such as the cities of South Fulton, Union City and Fairburn — are more than 80% Black. Other area cities — including East Point, Palmetto and Hapeville — are about 76%, 44% and 36% Black, all exceeding white populations.
Arrington said Grady South’s opening should not breed complacency and warned that locals cannot assume it’s enough. He hopes to see more hospitals built in the area to meet demand as the population grows.
What will the new Grady South emergency department look like?
Grady South‘s emergency department has 20 beds with the ability to expand if additional patients arrive. When the hospital opens in 2031, it will be a Level 3 facility and include 200 beds for critical, intermediate and acute care.
By comparison, Grady’s renowned downtown Atlanta Marcus Trauma Center and emergency department has 87 beds with the ability to treat more patients if demand suddenly surges. Grady Memorial Hospital is a Level 1 facility.
A Level 1 trauma center offers the highest tier of care, while a Level 3 facility can stabilize and treat most patients but will transfer critical cases to a higher-level center.
Credit: Jason Getz/AJC
Credit: Jason Getz/AJC
Saul said the opening of the freestanding emergency department and the eventual new hospital is “the stuff dreams are made of.” For him, Grady South is bringing necessary medical infrastructure to an area in need and serving as an economic engine for an expanding community.
“We are just honored to be that community partner that the public will rely on that can bring as much-needed healthcare to an area that’s growing, that has serious access needs and coupled with serious deficiencies in the healthcare provider ecosystem,” Saul said.
And though the decision to build Grady South was partly because of Wellstar’s two closures in 2022, Saul also said 30% of patients at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta are coming from southern Fulton County. The new emergency site and hospital, he believes, will free up Atlanta beds for high acuity services while also bringing emergency care closer to home for many.
The new emergency department will serve both adults and children, and when Grady South’s medical office building opens in 2028, an entire floor will be dedicated to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. Saul said families travel from far away to get to Children’s hospitals, part of the reason for bringing Children’s to Grady South. Children’s has three hospitals, all of which are located within Fulton and DeKalb counties and north of I-20.
Credit: Jason Getz/AJC
Credit: Jason Getz/AJC
Saul estimates the entire Grady South campus will bring more than 2,000 new jobs once fully developed.
Kaylen Emerson, the 20-year-old daughter of local teacher Sheila Emerson, said she hopes to start medical school by 2028 and then return to work at Grady South. In high school, Kaylen got her Emergency Medical Responder certification through Grady’s Teen Experience and Leadership Program and still volunteers with the healthcare system when she can. She was one of many volunteers giving public tours of the Grady South site before its Tuesday opening.
“It’s always been on my heart to give back to those who may not really have access to those big hospitals, those specialty providers,” Emerson said.
Faster medical care, shorter ambulance wait times
Chad Jones, chief of the city of South Fulton Fire Rescue Department, has been serving in the county for more than 35 years. Whether there is a nearby emergency care facility or not, Jones said responding firefighters and medics provide the same help to someone in distress.
What can change, according to him, is how quickly an ambulance arrives at a scene, how fast it gets to a hospital and how soon a patient is transferred into care.
Jones said about 80% of the calls his firefighters respond to are medical. Sometimes, units are at scenes for several hours just waiting on an ambulance, he said. Now, Jones said ambulances won’t have to travel as far.
“Having this hospital kind of in a central location, they will be able to transport quicker and get back in service and have shorter response times back into our area,” Jones said.
Credit: Jason Getz/AJC
Credit: Jason Getz/AJC
When Amber Jointer, 38, moved to South Fulton last fall, she picked the location knowing it had fewer medical resources. The licensed social worker offers virtual therapy and telehealth appointments through her own wellness practice, Grey Stone Guidance. She said she’s previously feared for patients who could experience shortness of breath, heart palpitations and other emergency symptoms.
“The proximity to emergency services could definitely mean the difference between life and death in some situations. When you have urgent medical needs in this area, you might be fighting Atlanta traffic to get to an emergency department,” she said.
Travel times from the southern corridor of Fulton County, such as Chattahoochee Hills and Palmetto, to Atlanta’s Grady Memorial can be as long as 50 minutes. Saul said the freestanding site could cut travel times by nearly 80%, depending on where patients are coming from.
Wall time — the duration between when an ambulance arrives at a hospital and when a patient is released to emergency care — may also decrease, Jones and Saul agreed.
The AJC reported in early May that Georgia’s goal is to keep wall time to 20 minutes or less in at least 90% of cases, but many hospitals across metro Atlanta aren’t coming close to that benchmark, Department of Public Health data from January through March of this year showed.
Credit: Jason Getz/AJC
Credit: Jason Getz/AJC
On average, the state’s goal is met only 44% of the time at hospitals in DeKalb, Fulton, Cobb, Clayton and Gwinnett counties, the data revealed. Grady Memorial met the patient offload goal only 23% of the time.
“This is not a trauma center, but is a freestanding emergency department, and they can handle a large number of critical care emergency cases at that center, even playing a role in stabilizing those that need additional trauma services,” Saul said, adding that “time is of the essence when you’re thinking of blood losses, when you’re thinking of strokes.”
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