Randolph Medical Center is now CLOSED!

Hospital abruptly closes doors

Randolph Medical Center was going to be closed in 30 days if no buyer was found. Then it was going to be closed in two weeks. Friday, about 3 p.m. the last doctor left.

Cuts in payments from Medicare, Medicaid, Blue-Cross Blue Shield and a high indigent-care loss allegedly led to the hospital closure.

In a called meeting Thursday night the Roanoke Health Care Authority voted to close RMC in two weeks because vendors who had not been paid cut off supplies, such as oxygen, and the hospital could not operate without oxygen, drugs and other supplies.

RMC employees Ron Cameron and Jimmy Johnson posted signs saying the emergency room was closed, and Johnson locked the front door of RMC.

It had to be unlocked a short time later to allow employees to leave with personal possessions. One loaded Christmas decorations in her car. No more Christmases in this hospital’s future.

Some nurses held a death watch at the entrance to the new emergency room. As employees left they hugged and cried. They asked each other questions that none could answer.

Employees were debating whether to come in Monday or not. They said they had not been told. Others said they would come in Monday but figured that day or Tuesday would be their last day.

The hospital opened in 1952 when Knight Sanatorium was still open. Friday it closed, leaving Roanoke with no hospital for the first time in about 90 years.

About 10 patients were moved to Wedowee Hospital, to LaGrange and possibly other places. Bewildered people who had come to see the patients were told they were gone. An attempt by Wyner Phillips to find out where Roy Williamson had been moved was futile.

Police Chief Adam Melton came to pick up the police car the department had allowed RMC to use to pick up laboratory samples and x-rays. He said it would just be sitting there with no one using it. A phlebotomist courier came out later asking where the car was that she used to deliver blood and other lab results to area doctor’s offices as well as Valley.

The truck used to give MRIs on the weekend arrived. Six had been scheduled for Saturday, someone said. He was let in to go to radiology, then came back and drove away.

The police chief had faced his first healthcare related problem earlier with a stabbing victim who needed care. He was airlifted to Columbus.

All day Melton had been meeting with various entities, from the superintendents at the police department, to planning how to handle medical emergency calls, to the ambulance services and other emergency organizations, and the medical helicopter organizations.

“I just got back from LaGrange meeting with Air Evac, the helicopter ambulance service based at the airport in LaGrange, and told them what was going on. They told me their response time would be 15 minutes,” he said. He learned the police can call in a helicopter. Of course that is contingent on whether the helicopter is on another call and whether the weather is suitable for flying.

He said they are as prepared as they can be. Plans are to update police on basic medical training they had in the academy so they can better inform the ambulance services.

There are going to be a lot of adjustments but they are going to do everything they can to provide help to the people of this community, he said.

Latisha Wright, who does not work at the hospital but who has worked in the medical field for 20 years, said this was an illegal closure and employees were not properly notifed. She had contacted the Alabama Department of Public Health, the office of inspector general and the Department of Health and Human Services. They have an interest since RMC had received grants and other tax monies.

She said Tom Geary, with ADPH, said they had not been notified the hospital was closed.

A patient leaving the ER had her patient file in hand, which Wright said was very smart with the doors locked and no one there to provide them with their files. Wright said when she talked to Geary he said at the bare minimum patients should have access to their medical records and the records must be maintained.

Alisha Yarbrough, who worked in the emergency room for five and a half years, said they were really looking forward to working in the new ER. She said it was really sad not only for them but for the community.

They said the ER was closed when the last physician left about 3:10 p.m. Director of Nursing Sara Billingsley had told the nurses they did not need to come in Monday, one nurse said. A memo from her to employees provided by a nurse had said bankruptcy with closing was the last option.

Details on this story are coming shortly.

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