South Georgia Medical Center is open and functioning, but according to CEO James McGahee, “We’ve got a a mess on our hands.”  McGahee said the hospital is fine, still accepting patients through the Emergency Department and can perform emergency procedures, but elective surgeries have been impacted.

Dialysis needs ionized water, and McGahee said the hospital has a large tank on site that can last for several days with another shipment due to arrive in the next 24 hours, so hopefully there will be no impact for the patients.

 

The bathrooms are functioning as best as they can at this time and food service is being impacted, although they are working around the issue by boiling water.

“The Nestle bottling plant has a truck enroute to us now and we’ve received offers of assistance from many others,” he said.

The greatest impact at this time is due to the strict water management the hospital is implementing, visitors are urged to keep visits very brief and only one visitor at a time. If the situation continues beyond today, visitation may have to be restricted even more.

 

SGMC has had a command center of officials working since the early morning hours and is working with the city in hopes that the water will be restored to the hospital as quickly as possible.