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No holiday for local hospital’s emergency room

By JOHN MUNFORD
jmunford@TheCitizenNews.com

One of the few facilities in Fayette County that never closes for the holidays is Piedmont Fayette Hospital on Fayetteville’s western border, which is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day especially, the hospital’s emergency room experienced the usual increased load of minor cases seen on holidays and weekends due to the closings of doctors’ offices, hospital officials said.

Dr. James Robertson, an emergency room physician, said there were no unusual holiday-related cases but it was “very busy.” The emergency cases were fairly routine, he said, such as heart attack, pneumonia and gastrointestinal bleeding.

There were also plenty of sore throats, coughs and colds to go around, Robertson said.

The hospital’s nearby Minor Emergency Care Clinic helped take some of the less sick patients, “helping us decompress a little for the very sick people.”

“It really helped us out this time,” Robertson said, crediting assistance from hospital administration.

The hospital is undergoing an expansion that will eventually create more room for its emergency department, a much-needed improvement due to the high number of emergency room visits, officials have said.