Recent water issues in Milledgeville, Ga., caused OconeeRegionalMedicalCenter to activate its emergency preparedness plan, according to the Union Recorder.
Milledgeville is suffering from a water shortage and boil advisory notice due to multiple major water main breaks in April that led to a shutdown of the city's water system.
"I'm not going to stand here and tell you that the hospital is the most important business in this county, but it's pretty important," Steven Johnson, ORMC's interim CEO, said during a town hall meeting Wednesday, according to the report. "I can tell you that it basically shut us down. It basically shut us down."
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The hospital has had to divert hundreds of patients to other facilities since April, Mr. Johnson said, according to the report.
"God knows I hope there weren't any lives lost in that diversion process," he said.
In one day last week, 17 surgeries were cancelled at ORMC due to the water crisis.
"I'm not even going to talk about the economic impact," said Mr. Johnson, according to the report. "I can tell you that we had two really good months in April and July, but the fact that we had several days where we couldn't have patients — those months were not so good. We're on a thin margin."
Milledgeville Mayor Gary L. Thrower said the hospital is a "high-priority" business in the city and assured the town hall the city will work on resolving the problem.
"What we need to do is reexamine the plumbing diagram at the hospital," Mr. Thrower said, according to the report. "We think there's a main not being accessed and feel like there could be something that's not being done properly that we need to make some changes on … If a dedicated line to the hospital is what we need, we need to figure it out. So rest assured; you're on top of the list."