Each morning as I drive to work south on Patterson I pass by South Georgia Medical Center. As with most of you, I have very emotional memories from times I have spent there.

Some memories are absolute joys as when I think about the births of two daughters and one of our four granddaughters. Later this month, our fifth granddaughter will make her world debut there just like her mother. With the joys have been the times of sadness as when we first learned that cancer had come to our family or the times of sitting in the waiting rooms as the lives of family and friends slipped away.

My family’s faith and the support of family and friends helped make the joy even more joyful; it also helped to make the sadness more bearable. When I am making my morning drive, I sometimes think about those times. Then I remind myself how long it has been since the last time I was there. Even when I am not there, the hospital, doctors and staff are continuing to help other families. When it becomes our turn again they will be ready. There is much comfort in that.

I was born further south down Patterson at Little-Griffin Hospital. Someone near that time had the forethought to look beyond the current health needs of a 1950s generation. Instead, there was a vision and the small hospital on the corner left its small town surroundings to the present location as Pineview General. At the time, I remember how big the hospital seemed. A hospital like that should serve our needs forever, I am sure some people must have thought. Thankfully we had leaders who saw a community that needed a cancer center, that needed a heart center, that needed larger intensive-care units, that needed more patient rooms, that needed larger emergency facilities and on and on, the needs have been addressed. As someone who is on the edge of the large baby-boomer generation and one who will inevitably need more and more of the services of a hospital, I am thankful for leaders with a health-care vision.

Last week, I had the opportunity to see the two new additions nearing completion at SGMC, the outpatient surgical building and the doctor’s building. Both are first class.

To say the surgical building is state of the art is an understatement. The design for easy pass through of patients and the four operating rooms with next generation technology will give South Georgia residents another reason to fill their health-care needs here at home.

The surgical unit’s entrance faces the entrance to the new doctor’s building. The cardiac rehabilitation department will be housed here but the majority of the building will be sold to doctors for spaces for one doctor or to groups. The idea behind the new complex is for doctors to have the best of addresses for their practices but to also give them the convenience of a next-door surgical unit and walking distance to one of the best regional medical facilities in the South.

The opening of the new buildings will make room for more changes at the hospital and the demolition of the ‘old’ doctor’s building. This space will make way for a new parking deck which in turn will bring about a Valdosta State University health services teaching facility.

Do we need all of this new construction for health care? I don’t know; did we need to move from Little-Griffin Hospital? I think we all know the answer.