A year later, future of Wellstar's Atlanta Medical Center site remains uncertain

Last November, Wellstar closed the 450-bed Atlanta Medical Center, a vital health care provider for many low-income residents, just months after closing the smaller Atlanta Medical Center South in East Point. Wellstar had operated both hospitals since 2016 after buying them and others from for-profit operator Tenet Healthcare Corp.

The Associated Press reported that the Old Fourth Ward location's closure meant the loss of the city's only other emergency room besides Grady with a highest-level trauma designation and an obstetrics department where many babies were born. 

Local officials, including Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens, said at the time that Wellstar gave them no notice or chance to help.

On the first anniversary of the closure, Atlanta trauma surgeon Mark Walker said the disruption to the city's health care ecosystem over the past year has been devastating.

"People have suffered as a consequence of the closure," he told GPB in an interview. "The time is now for us to begin to address this in a very serious and purposeful way."

Walker and some community leaders want the hulking building re-started as a hospital, but that might take years.

Others want a crisis support center.

In the meantime, it sits empty in a prime location for development.