East Point clinic opens urgent care, working to fill gap of closed hospital

EAST POINT, Ga. — Dr. David Williams shows off the reconstructed basement of the Southside Clinic location on Cleveland Avenue.

The facility has a new X-ray machine, exam rooms, and a procedure room to take in urgent care visitors after receiving $5 million from Wellstar.

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The money and renovations came after Wellstar decided to close its urgent care operations at Atlanta Medical Center South, a year after it closed down the hospital at that same location.

“We’re offering urgent care combined with primary care and dental services and a pharmacy,” Dr. Williams said. “We call that giving them a medical home.”

The clinic has an urgent care on the bottom floor and primary care just above it.

Dr. Williams says it should allow urgent care patients to see primary care doctors for preventative care if their need is not an emergency.

However, there is one gap the clinic does not fill.

“Right now, we don’t have emergency care. You would have to go to Grady, piedmont, or Emory,” Dr. Williams said.

“We would love to see that open back up as a hospital. We need it here,” said Neal Purvis, a local East Point resident.

Neal moved here in 2017 and says he’s had to visit the emergency room multiple times after the hospital closed. He was forced to take the longer drive to Grady Memorial Hospital, adding between 18-30 minutes to his drive.

“I can die between there and here. So how much does that cost? What does that cost my friends? What does that cost my family?” Purvis said.

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Dr. Williams says they hope to one day address that as well.

He hopes within 18 months, Southside will be able to operate the old hospital. However, the plan still needs to find funding.

His final hope is to have primary, urgent, and emergency care in one location to better meet everyone’s needs.

“What if when you came to an emergency room, you were screened and told, this is actually primary care go through this door. This is a little more urgent, go through this door. This is a true emergency, we got you,” Williams said.

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