Councilman Plans Second Rally for VA Hospital in Smyrna

A member of the Smyrna City Council hopes that a large turnout at a rally planned on Saturday will help convince the federal government to set up a new hospital for veterans in the city.

Councilman Wade Lnenicka and supporters, including members of Smyrna American Legion Post 160, will assemble outside the old Emory-Adventist Hospital at noon on Jan. 10 to continue their efforts to have the shuttered facility reborn as a medical campus for armed forces veterans in the Cobb County area.

Lnenicka wrote in a Wednesday e-mail that the brief rally will take place on public property, namely the sidewalk outside the former hospital at 3949 South Cobb Drive. Residents are encouraged to create and bring signs to the rally, and veterans are asked to wear their American Legion, VFW, or other veteran association caps.

According to Lnenicka, anywhere from six to 10 percent of all Georgia veterans reside in Cobb County, and the existing VA medical facility in Austell cannot handle the current number of veterans it has been charged with caring for.

Additionally, the Emory-Adventist site is ideally situated near major highways, Lnenicka wrote in the e-mail. The councilman also claimed that the Emory-Adventist site was closer to Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport than the Atlanta VA Medical Center in Decatur, but Google Maps reports that the Decatur facility is one half mile closer to the airport than the proposed Smyrna facility.

Regardless of how close the site is to the airport, converting Emory-Adventist Hospital into a VA Medical Center would bring jobs and doctors to the area and provide a more convenient source of medical care for Cobb’s veterans, Lnenicka wrote.

The Saturday rally will be the second such gathering Lnenicka has led at the old hospital; the councilman wrote on Wednesday that his Dec. 6 rally was so popular that supporters asked him to hold further assemblies to advance the cause. Lnenicka wrote that Saturday’s rally is the only event scheduled so far, but other demonstrations could be held in the months ahead if popular interest continues to increase.

Adventist Health System and Emory Healthcare announced on July 30, 2014 that Emory-Adventist would be closing due to financial shortfalls and an inability to remain economically viable in the current market.

The decision to close the hospital was made on July 28, following months of searching for other alternatives, including partnering with other health systems to keep the hospital afloat. The Emory-Adventist Health System’s board came to the conclusion that, “the hospital is no longer sustainable in today’s dramatically changed health care environment.”

Emory-Adventist’s emergency room closed for the last time at 7 a.m. on Oct. 29, two days before the deadline officials had set to close down hospital operations.