MACON, Ga. — Across Georgia, the state is building temporary medical units to help in the fight against COVID-19.
One is coming to Macon.
Governor Brian Kemp announced it Monday.
"The state purchased four temporary medical units to expand bed capacity and strategically deploy them based on need," he said.
Four sites were chosen across Georgia for those units. The Medical Center, Navicent Health is one of them.
"There's going to be 6 pods, each pod will have 4 rooms, for a total of 24 patient rooms," said Bibb County EMA Director Spencer Hawkins.
Crews will retrofit cargo containers to house those rooms. The units will be installed in a parking lot at The Medical Center, Navicent Health across from the emergency room.
Hawkins says they hope to have it open in two or three weeks..
"The plan to have it open is sometime around the beginning of May," he said.
The medical director of Navicent's Emergency Department, Dr. John Wood, says the plans are still in the early stages, but the unit will likely be geared toward non-COVID patients to free up space in the main hospital if the need arises.
"This is more of a lower acuity temporary medical unit," he said. "Broken ankle or something like that as opposed to a COVID-patient."
Wood says the units are a preemptive measure for the level one trauma center.
"At present, this is not needed, this is more of a precautionary measure," he said. "We're obviously watching all the prediction models, watching for when the surge may happen and the goal is to be prepared when the surge happens, not to try to catch up with it afterwards."
The Medical Center, Navicent Health is a regional hospital that treats patients from across Central and South Georgia, not just Bibb County.
Wood said they're preparing for a potential surge of patients around the end of April, but when asked, he declined to say how close to capacity the hospital is right now.
"I can't give you the exact number on capacity, I practice primarily out of the emergency department," he said. "What I will tell you is everything seems to be running very smoothly in the hospital," said Wood.
The Georgia Emergency Management Agency (GEMA) says the unit will cost $3 million.
According to Hawkins, state funds will be used to pay for it.
Dr. Wood says, to the best of his understanding, GEMA will also provide the medical staff for the unit.
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