New Hospital for Rabun County…Maybe

The Mountain Lakes Medical Center has plans to build a new hospital in the Clayton area after cutting jobs and budgets this year…

“We’ve cut 13 positions this year, all were non-clinical positions. They were administrative positions, and the work has been taken up by people of different departments. And we’re doing what all families do, we’re tightening our belts,everyday.”

Says Hospital representative Vicki Lawrenson. The hospital has also made 1.1 million dollars in budget cuts already this year but is willing to spend money on the new project…

“We bought some land in this county, right over here by the Flea Market, we bought 30 acres, and we want to put a new facility on there. And we got to get through the feasibility report, and I can’t get through a feasibility report untill I get everybody in this community wanting to have that hospital there.”

As of now Lawrenson says the hospital only brings in about 25% of the local medical business due impart to a weak trauma center,but a new location on a main road would help greatly with that,and that the 10 million dollar new facility would bring about 40 new jobs to the area.