Cullman residents who arrived for medical attention at the Woodland Medical Center Emergency Room Wednesday morning were shocked to find out it had closed.

“This is reflective of how they (Cullman Regional Medical Center) will do business from now on,” said Cullman resident Jeff Hunter.

Hunter and his wife were seeing a doctor in the Woodland Processional Building and had no idea of the closure.

“That’s terrible,” he said.

“We hate that there’s no choice,” Theresa Hunter said. “That will affect my insurance.”

The Hunters had used Woodland’s ER in the past because of the wait.

“(We used Woodland’s ER) Simply because you seem to get in there sooner. You go to CRMC and you never know how long you’ll be there,” Jeff Hunter said.

Theresa Hunter thought CRMC should have given more advance notice to the general public about the ER closing. CRMC posted the ER closure on its Web site Monday, while Woodland posted on Tuesday.

“The general public doesn’t check the Web site,” she said.

On June 1, CRMC announced the buyout of Woodland and its intent to close the facility on July 15, but it wasn’t until Monday that officials announced the July 1 ER closure.

“I’m pleased with the whole process and we notified the public as soon as we were authorized to do so,” said Jim Weidner, CEO of Cullman Regional Medical Center in response to resident’s concerns.

Weidner maintains CRMC followed all steps in notifying the public of the closure.

“We had to wait until the Alabama Department of Public Health gave the approval,” he said. “In the transition plan they were making sure the public was protected.”

Although Weidner maintains they notified the public as soon as they were authorized, Cindy Lewis, with Woodland Village Nursing Home, was not surprised at the sudden closure of the ER.

“Woodland Hospital sent a 30-day notice of all the dates of the closings of the departments,” she said.

Lewis said both CRMC and Woodland have been working with the nursing home closely during the transition.

“They have been making sure we were taken care of,” Lewis said. “It was not a surprise.”

Lewis said the closure will not affect the nursing home because it has already been using CRMC.

“The majority of our residents already went to Cullman Regional,” she said.

Frank Brown, owner of USA Healthcare, which owns Woodland Village, said he does not anticipate any problems with the ER closure.

“By law, they sent us a notice over a month ago (saying) they were closing sometime in July,” he said. “There is the convenient aspect, but we have been taking most of our patients to CRMC.”

Brown said his company has had a good working relationship with CRMC and hopes to keep it that way in the future.

Cullman resident Vard Camp said he is disappointed in the way the closure was handled.

“I don’t think it is right (giving short notice of the ER closure),” Camp said. “I’d be a little angry if I went there today and they were closed.”

“I think that’s a big mistake, regardless of the situation,” Glenn Harris of Jones Chapel said.

Harris said he has used both Woodland and Cullman Regional Medical Center but prefers Woodland because it saved his life when he had pneumonia.

“It’s harming the community,” he said. “There are some good doctors there that are a good help to the community.”

He thinks a community the size of Cullman needs two hospitals, and wants a choice.

“We just need them. It’s unfair not to have a choice. I want a choice,” Harris said. “If I showed up at the ER I would feel disappointed at the decision-makers and the officials that made this decision.”

In an interview with The Times on Tuesday, CRMC officials said they planned to close the Woodland emergency room on July 1 upon state approval. In the transition plan to the state, CRMC outlined closing the ER July 1, and after the approval was granted on Monday, it notified patients with the Web post.

Other services were being reduced at the hospital as well. Woodland’s clinical laboratory, pharmacy and radiology departments will only service in-patients admitted prior to today. No new patients will be admitted from now until July 15, and any patients who remain on July 15 will be moved to a facility of their choice.

“Our plan was to do it this way,” Weidner said. “We had to submit a transition plan, and the Alabama Department of Public Health made suggested modifications.”

Butch Naylor, Woodland CEO, declined to comment by phone, but responded by e-mail.

“The notification that Woodland Village received was a routine letter to vendors that Woodland Medical Center supports,” he said. “The notification they received was not about the ER closure.”

Nayor said there was signage notifying the public of the closure.

“When patients arrive at the Woodland ER, there is proper signage that directs them to CRMC,” he said. “The signage includes a map, address and phone number for CRMC. For those true emergency situations, there are still staff and ambulances on site.”

Jerry Sellers, director of CRMC’s ambulance service, said he had seen only one person at Woodland’s ER in need of care as of 1:30 p.m. Wednesday. That person was able to transport himself to CRMC.

“So far only one patient has come by today,” Sellers said. “The ambulance service wants to make sure the transition is going as smoothly as possible.”

Sellers said CRMC’s ambulances along with American Ambulance Service have been at Woodland’s ER since midnight Tuesday night.

“We started at midnight last night in case something happened,” he said. “There’s an ambulance here around the clock.”

Sellers said the transition is going well and all parties are working well together.

“We plan to keep a truck down there throughout the holiday weekend,” Sellers said.

Also announced Wednesday was the addition of 50 acute care beds and 20 psychiatric beds from Woodland to CRMC. The request was approved from the State Health Planning and Development Agency by an emergency certificate of need that was issued to The Health Care Authority of Cullman County, CRMC. The proposed cost of the project is $492,500.

“We won’t have the capacity for psychiatric beds on July 15,” Weidner said. “We are trying as best we can to come up with a plan to have a psychiatric facility in Cullman County.”

Weidner hopes to have the psychiatric beds at CRMC.

“The plan is we want the licensed psychiatric beds on this campus, but we do not have the authorization to have them,” Weidner said.

‰ Tiffany Green can be reached by e-mail at tgreen@cullmantimes.com or by telephone at 734-2131, ext. 221.