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Cobb clinic leaves patients desperate for medications

The abrupt closing of a Cobb County medical clinic left several angry patients wondering how to get their medical records and their medications refilled.

COBB COUNTY, Ga. — Channel 2's Ross Cavitt went to the once-popular clinic on Veterans Memorial Highway Tuesday to help get answers.

Generations of south Cobb families went to the Bankhead Clinic to see Dr. James Griffith.  A nearby bridge on Veterans Memorial Parkway bears his name.

"He was a legend, he still is," patient Joel Larocque said.

In 1998, the Legislature honored him for his then-50 years of medical service and the inestimable numbers of lives he'd helped, lives he'd saved, and the friends he'd made.

In the days of insurance and co-pays, patients told Cavitt that Griffith is a throwback.

"You’d call in advance and say I need to see the doctor (and) I don't get paid until Friday, he'd say no problem come on in, if you're sick come on in."

At the age of 97, a medical setback forced the doctor to close the clinic, leaving frustrated patients, some for the first time, without a doctor or their medications.

"All the patients, we have no way of getting in touch with anyone to get our records to go to another doctor,” patient Judy Davis said.

Davis said she still loves the doctor, but understands the angry notes taped to the door of the office. People feel like they've been abandoned and she's taken the last of her medications for COPD and arthritis.

"Right now I'm out, so I'm desperately trying to get my records,” she told Cavitt.

There is nothing at the closed office telling patients what to do.

And most are convinced they'll never find another doctor like Griffith.

"They don't grow them like that anymore," Davis said.

Channel 2 Action News reached out to some of the doctor's former office staff, who insist they are still trying to deal with the mounds of paper records and ask that patients have their new doctors contact the office to get records transferred.

WSBTV

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