Join us on December 30 to rally against Wellstar’s hospital closures in Black communities!

Wellstar Health System, the largest healthcare corporation in the state of Georgia, announced that on January 12, 2024, Wellstar East Point Health Center on Cleveland Ave will close. In the past two years, Wellstar has closed two hospitals in the the Atlanta area, first AMC on Boulevard, one of only two Level 1 trauma centers in Atlanta, and AMC South, the only emergency department in south Fulton County, replaced by this outgoing urgent care center.

With the closure of the hospital in East Point, residents of East Point and College Park went from having a hospital with an emergency department in their backyard to having no option but to go to Grady or Emory, which ambulances can take 30-40 minutes to reach. With the closure of the urgent care in East Point, Wellstar makes it clear that the cuts to less profitable working-class communities are far from over.

Wellstar recently completed the acquisition of Augusta University’s health system and is now entering talks to merge with Emory Healthcare. This would subject many tens of thousands of Georgians to the possibility of these unilateral closures in oppressed communities. Our local and state governments have rubber stamped Wellstar’s rampage over and over. We say enough is enough!

Healthcare activists have drawn ties between the shutdown of hospitals in the U.S. which leave working people without healthcare, to the brutal US-backed bombing of Gaza by Israel. Hospitals close and children are kicked off Medicaid while the U.S. government pumps billions of dollars to fund genocide in Gaza and maintain the colonial occupation in Palestine. We demand our tax dollars fund healthcare and people’s needs, not the war machine!

Build the movement for healthcare to be a human right! We demand the expansion of Medicaid and access to hospitals with emergency services in all working class communities! Hold Wellstar accountable for its crimes!