Phoebe construction reaches new milestone, final beam of new medical tower placed

ALBANY, Ga. – A major milestone took place Tuesday morning as the final beam in Phoebe’s new medical tower was placed. Giving the hospital a solid timeframe for new facilities.

Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital CEO, Deborah Angerami says that the final beam placement makes the timeline for Phoebe’s new tower much more clear.

“I think it’s a huge landmark day for our employees, for our physicians, for our community. I mean this is really a landmark day, I can’t think of a better word for it. But, it’s a mark where now we’re ready to complete the inside of the building, start moving resources, start moving staff, start moving equipment…” said Deborah Angerami, CEO, Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital.

The new tower is meant to expand Phoebe’s emergency center as well as an expanded ICU and NICU.

And, it brings some much needed expansion to intensive care.

“Our new tower is going to have a brand new ER. Our current ER is only 19,000 square feet. The new ER will be 53,000 square feet. It’s going to be a huge expansion. We’re also going to be adding 20 ICU beds. We currently have 38 ice beds, we’ll be adding 20 to that…” she said.

While nothing will officially be open for use until late 2024, there is, no pun intended, a concrete idea of what needs to happen over the course of the next ten plus months.

“We’ll start moving into the fall, we’ll start moving into our EC, our emergency center first. And, that will be followed the next month by our NICU and our ICU, and then once we’re in those locations, we’ll start to renovate those locations where those services came out of. So, the vision for the EC, is that at some point, it will be one large, integrated EC…” she said.

And given the closure of rural hospitals across southwest Georgia in recent years the expansion in the new tower is greatly needed.

“…I’m a big believer that you don’t want to send your community to hospital beds out of town. You want to bring the hospital beds to your community. So, if you have a loved that gets hurt, or gets sick, or needs surgery, you don’t have to travel to see them, we have the services right here…” she said.

There’s still a lot that needs to be done over the course of the next year to ensure that all of the new towers facilities are approved and ready for use, but it is a major step forward for Phoebe.

Phoebe broke ground on the new tower in January of this year.

Brian Roche reporting.

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