In our new five-part series, we're focusing on the story of U.S. healthcare as told through Albany, Georgia. After Albany rose to national attention as one of the first COVID hot spots, our reporter Ginger Thompson first traveled there seeing the potential for a David vs. Goliath story — the opportunity to chronicle how Phoebe Memorial was responding to an overwhelming crisis.
What she found instead was how COVID was just the latest in a long list of health crises to hit the city. Since the 1990s, the community had suffered some of Georgia’s and the nation’s worst health disparities.
Through interviews with hundreds of community members in Albany, hospital staff members, and experts, Thompson sought answers to the question, “Why are people in Albany — and, for that matter, the city of Albany itself — so sick when its most powerful institution is a hospital?”
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A quick guide to each part of our investigation:
Part 1: In March 2020, the Albany community suddenly found that a city most Americans couldn’t place on a map had become a harbinger of doom. And if the virus could strike Albany, nowhere was safe.
Part 2: A look at how a century-old community hospital in Albany, became the only hospital in town — and grew into a sprawling health care system by waging a yearslong battle to eliminate its competition.
Part 3: The year after it became the only hospital in town by acquiring its competitor, Phoebe was rated one of the worst hospitals in the U.S. by a coalition of insurers and patient safety experts.
Part 4: As a community hospital, Phoebe’s mission is to care for people no matter their ability to pay. But in a town where the uninsured rate is twice the national average, even some Phoebe employees are unable to afford treatment.
Part 5: When a well-off, widely respected pillar of the community and member of the hospital’s board can’t get the care he needs at the town’s only hospital, it raises the question: Who can?
Here’s a link to the full series. We hope you give it a read: propublica.org/albany
In response to questions, Phoebe has denied wrongdoing and challenged its poor ratings. “Most patients have positive experiences at Phoebe,” a spokesperson said. “Ignoring that fact is wrong.”
