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With an expert staff offering 24-hour emergency care, advanced diagnostic procedures, minimally invasive surgery, nuclear medicine studies and comprehensive rehabilitation programs, this 25-bed hospital also provides advanced cardiac testing, rehabilitation services and a diabetes management program. On May 22, 2010, Carilion Giles Community Hospital opened the doors of its new facility and began a new era in healthcare.
Wow! Doesn’t this sound good? Maybe too good to be true? The primary reason given for the need to build this beautiful new hospital was that they needed a larger emergency room facility to accommodate the many emergency visits to the hospital. Now that Carilion has used approximately 5 million Giles County taxpayer dollars to bring their new hospital to our community they are continuously under-staffed in just about every area of the hospital, including the Emergency Room. A larger emergency room has been added but what good is it without adequate staffing?
The hospital staff consists of many good people but as is the case in every company operation, you sometimes encounter people who are lacking in either professionalism, training, or both. Possibly the employees and staff of this hospital are lacking leadership from the top, or they aren’t satisfied employees for some reason and don’t have the attitude necessary to deal with the public in a professional manner.
Comments from hospital staff that make their way to the general public reveal that the hospital has a shortage of qualified personnel in various key positions at this facility. If this is true, why does Carilion management allow this problem to exist without taking permanent corrective action?
This modern 25 bed facility is seldom filled to capacity for some unknown reason but the old Giles Memorial Hospital seemed to almost always be filled to capacity. What has happened? If this information related by hospital staff is accurate, are the citizens of Giles and Monroe Counties suddenly more healthy since the new hospital opened?
I suspect the Montgomery Regional Hospital has benefitted from the inadequacies that exist at our Giles hospital. They have a very modern approach to management of their Emergency Room and as you drive across Brush Mountain they have an up to the minute sign that tells you how many minutes you will have to wait in their Emergency Room. They send an employee to your room to register you and have you sign required forms, in lieu of requiring you to do all of that paperwork before you are taken to a room in the Emergency area. Professionalism exists at this facility and under better management it could exist at our Giles hospital.