Phoebe gives Dougherty County Commission a COVID-19 update

ALBANY, Ga. – Phoebe Health officials and county leaders gathered Monday for an update on the hospital system’s COVID-19 situation.

It’s been 220 days since Phoebe health systems took in their first COVID-19 patient. 

“We want to just thank our community again, really our entire community as we have fought this virus arm in arm from our caregivers to our wonderful community,” said Phoebe President & CEO Scott Steiner.

Since Phoebe received their first coronavirus case March 10, the health system has had a total of 914 admissions for the novel virus, tested 13,871 people and have reported 2,728 cases throughout their health system. Luckily, cases, admissions and deaths have plummeted in Dougherty County.

“The decline in the number of patients admitted at Phoebe in Albany and across our health system has continued to decline over the last few weeks and is currently at levels we have not observed since the latter part of June,” said Phoebe Chief Medical Officer Dr. Steven Kitchen.

Now with less admissions and less deaths, Phoebe is looking forward. Next year, Phoebe hopes to serve more hard to reach places, by bringing doctors to rural areas. With the purchase of two new mobile health centers, Phoebe physicians will be able to provide clinic assessments, screenings and so much more.

Steiner said, “These will be mobile health centers that we would deploy throughout Southwest Georgia to care for our communities, it might be to deploy COVID-19 vaccines, it might be normal influenza vaccines, it’ll be pediatrics, it’ll be OBGYN, it’ll be primary care, but these will be true mobile health centers that will be rolling throughout Southwest Georgia as we make that commitment to bring care to where people live, where they work.”