Local & State Headlines

Board honors doctor

• A local nomination wins Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital a regional honor for its work with senior citizens.

Susan McCord

ALBANY — Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital recognized a retiring physician and solidified plans with SOWEGA Council on Aging for a new senior citizens’ center at a monthly board meeting Wednesday.

For 28 years, Dr. John W. “Woody” Sanders cared for some of the hospital’s more challenging patients — children. “They can’t always tell you what is wrong. It takes a more astute technician to be able to feel their hurts,” said Phoebe CEO Joel Wernick.

Sanders said he was stepping down because his post-polio condition was making his work physically more difficult, but said he was happy to leave on a positive note.

Over the years, Sanders had offered much input and assistance to the hospital, “always guiding us toward better patient care,” Wernick said.

A nomination by SOWEGA Council on Aging triggered the Southeastern Association of Area Agencies on Aging’s awarding Phoebe the 2007 Outstanding Community Service Award earlier this month at its conference in Savannah, said Debbie Blanton, assistant director of the council.

Phoebe is “truly a blessing” to the Council on Aging and the community’s aging population, the organization said in its nomination, Blanton said. Since 2000, the hospital has donated $135,000 to purchase lumber to build wheelchair ramps for people who might otherwise be “prisoners in their own homes,” as well as $17,000 to the Council on Aging for the purchase of yarn and fabric for volunteers to knit and sew tiny “preemie” caps, blankets and bears provided to children at the hospital, she said.

The hospital also is a few weeks away from finalizing the transfer of a property to the Council on Aging for a new state-of-the-art senior center, Wernick said.

The property, the former Byne Memorial Baptist Church and school on West Society Avenue, will become home to a new senior citizens’ center that has been in the works for several years, Blanton said after the meeting. SOWEGA Council on Aging Executive Director Kay Hind was out of town Wednesday, Blanton said.

Phoebe paid $1.25 million for the seven-acre Byne site in 2005, with plans to house a hospital data center as well as a senior center there, according to previous Herald reports.

Phoebe Foundation’s Lauren Ray outlined the results of the 22nd annual Nancy Lopez Hospice Golf Classic, which benefits Albany Community Hospice. A pre-tournament bash, raffle for a Mercedes-Benz and a junior golf clinic helped raise $168,000 for the foundation, Ray said. “This is not my show, this is the work of all my dedicated volunteers and our generous sponsors,” she said.

Fundraising for Willson Hospice House, a new facility on Westover Boulevard, has generated $4.5 million toward a goal of $7 million in the second year of a three-year campaign, Foundation Director Tom Sullivan said.

Phoebe Chief of Staff Hasan Rizvi announced that a physician bylaws subcommittee had selected Elizabeth “Libby” Snelson, a Minnesota healthcare attorney, to work with the committee on a new set of physician bylaws.

Formerly an attorney for the California Medical Association, Snelson has authored articles and presentations on physician bylaws, such as “Obsolete Medical Staff Bylaws: What You Don’t Update Can Hurt You,” according to her firm’s Web site.

“Our bylaws are older than Dr. Boyd’s participation on the medical staff,” resembling “an old inner tube with a lot of patches on it,” Wernick said.

Snelson charges $300 an hour and expects the bylaws revision, using a template, to take 50-60 hours, Rizvi said.

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