The partnership that Wellstar and Augusta University health systems announced last December went into operation Wednesday. Under a 40-year agreement the two parties announced in March, Wellstar plans to invest nearly $800 million over the next decade including more than $200 million going to Augusta University Medical Center, a more than 600-bed safety net and teaching hospital.
The partnership has drawn criticism from state lawmakers representing districts in metro Atlanta, who complained that Wellstar’s decision to close the 460-bed Atlanta Medical Center last fall combined with the closing of a smaller Wellstar hospital in East Point earlier in 2022 has left a “health-care desert” in majority Black areas of central and southern Fulton County.
