Americus Times Recorder hires Augusta law firm to avoid court hearing

The Americus Times Recorder retained the Augusta law firm of Hull, Towill, Norman, Barrett and Salley, in its attempt to avoid being a witness for the defense in the case of Sumter County Board of Elections and Registration vs. NAACP.

The Times Recorder hired the firm after Publisher William Bronson III and Managing Editor Beth Alston received subpoenas from Sheriff Deputies at their office on September 1.

In a September 6 letter to NAACP attorney Maurice Luther King, Jr., Times Recorder attorney David E. Hudson, said, "O.C.G.A. 24-9-30 provides a privilege to newspaper journalists against having to provide testimony in cases in which the newspaper or the journalists are not parties. This information does not apply if the information sought is relevant to the case and cannot be obtained from other sources.

It is our intention to file a motion to quash your subpoenas unless you can provide me with some information today that shows how testimony you seek from these two journalists is necessary to your case and cannot be obtained from other sources. I want to give you that opportunity before going down the road of a motion to quash as it will perhaps save both your clients and these journalists unnecessary trouble and expense."

Speaking for the NAACP, board member James L. Bryant Jr., said, "We subpoenaed the Times Recorder because they printed the information that the Election Board claimed was confidential in their newspaper." He said, "We basically wanted them to tell who they got that information from, but it appears that they got scared and decided to hire a lawyer to protect them from telling us what they had already printed in their own newspaper. How stupid is that?"

Dr. John Marshall, President of the Americus Sumter NAACP, said, "Ratliff leaked the information and the Times Recorder printed it right before the run off election to hurt Matt Wright and to help Randy Howard win the election. They always do these types of devious articles on black candidates, but I think after this episode they will be more careful."

The law firm filed a motion with Judge Peagler on Thursday, September 7, 2006, to quash the subpoenas, but it is unknown whether or not Judge Peagler granted the motion. The case of Sumter County Board of Elections vs. NAACP was resolved the next day after the Election Board agreed to a consent order.

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Sumter Regional faces complaints from patients

The local NAACP has fielded a barrage of complaints against Sumter Regional Hospital.

From alleged wrongdoings and abuse to incompetence, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has written a letter to Sumter Regional contending the hospital's conduct in two cases are in violation of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act.

The NAACP also has fielded two additional complaints.

Local NAACP President Dr. John Marshall said unless the hospital immediately addresses the problems, his group will file a complaint with the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

"People are suffering there and Sumter Regional has to pay for it," Marshall said.

The two complainants mentioned in the letter, Stephen Jackson and Gary Brown went to Sumter Regional to receive treatment for excruciating stomach pain. Jackson, 31, told the Observer, he went to the hospital in 2003 and was sent back home after they couldn't find anything wrong.

He added he went to bed but woke back up with so much pain he had to crawl out of bed and on the floor to find help.  "It was a pain that I never felt in my entire life," Jackson said.

He said he went back to Sumter Regional where he waited in the emergency room for almost half a day. He received an appendectomy and was released a couple days later. But the pulsating pain was still there. After several trips back to the hospital, doctors discovered what they said was an abscess in his stomach and gave him some medicine to treat it.

But the pain still didn't subside, which caused him to lose his technician job at Verizon Wireless after staying home sick so many days.

"They told me the pain was just from scar tissue, but I knew it was more than that," Jackson said.

"Then, doctors finally made the right diagnosis," he said. They discovered that Dr. Glenn Summers, general surgeon, had left a small piece of appendix inside Jackson's abdomen. They removed it and Jackson said he hasn't felt the pain since.

"I haven't been sick since, not so much as a cold," he said.

But now the hospital wants him to pay about $23,000 for the surgery that removed the last piece. Upset about what he said was a bill he should have never received; Jackson filed a complaint with the NAACP.

"Your billing office is demanding that this man pay approximately $20,000 for the initial medical malpractice and the continued medical malpractice that was practiced upon him," Marshall wrote in the letter to David Seagraves, CEO Sumter Regional.

In Gary Brown's case, he entered Sumter Regional emergency room in October of last year for abdominal pain and was sent home without the correct diagnosis, according to the letter.

"They put me in a wheel chair and took me to my car like there was nothing wrong," said Brown, in an interview with the Observer.

A 42-year-old truck driver, Brown went home and said his pain worsened. He and his wife, Tammy Brown went to Phoebe Putney Memorial in Albany where doctors discovered intestinal obstruction. Sumter Regional Hospital missed it.

But Brown was left with a $9,000 bill from Sumter Regional. His insurance only paid for about $7,600. Brown said he doesn't think he should have to pay Sumter Regional.

"They sent him home dying" said his wife Tammie.

Sumter Regional has taken Brown to court for a payment of $1,405, according to the NAACP letter addressed to Seagraves.  "Mr. Gary Brown takes great issue with this bill and the lack of treatment that he received at Sumter Regional Hospital that placed his life in danger because your hospital failed to make the correct diagnosis," Marshall said.

Marshall said that Seagraves has not responded to the NAACP letter of complaint. The NAACP is also working on two more cases of complaints filed against the hospital, including that of Sekithia Austin, a 23-year-old woman who went to Sumter Regional this summer in the third month of her pregnancy.

In an interview with the Observer, Austin said somehow during her visit, the hospital gave her a wristband with another woman's name on it. She said hospital officials told her to fill out a will because of the dire condition they thought she was in. Believing she was another woman, they could have given her the wrong medicine, Austin added.

"They made me think I was dying," Austin said of the mix-up.

Austin added the hospital eventually realized she was not the woman whose name appeared on the wrist band but she felt sick from the medicine they gave her.

 "I was pregnant and they gave me something that made me feel sick in the stomach," Austin said.  Austin said she is trying to find a lawyer.

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Sales tax extension may tear down Staley

Staff Reports

The local NAACP is concerned that the sales tax the Sumter County School Board is pushing in a Sept. 19 referendum may be used to bulldoze over the city's only standing historically black school.

The NAACP said  the education special purpose local option sales tax (ESPLOST) would be used to tear down Staley Middle School, which is now in the center of a predominately black neighborhood and rebuild it in the suburbs.

"We are concerned because this school has a very strong, historic significance to our community," said NAACP President Dr. John Marshall.

The decades-old Staley Middle School was Americus's all-black high school before integration. Marshall said the NAACP is currently trying to round up black alumni from the high school to start generating support to keep the school standing, if the rumors prove true.

"I, for one, am against it," said Andrew Daniels, a graduate of the black high school. "Something will have to be done against it."

The special purpose local option sales tax would financially benefit Sumter County Schools with a one-percent tax that would be added to all sales in the county. The school system has such a tax since July 1, 2002, but it is set to expire June 30, 2007. The resolution the Board seeks will extend it another five years and is estimated to generate between $15 and $18 million, said Mike Drahust, finance director for Sumter County Schools.

Superintendent Dennis McMahon said the ESPLOST would be used to give students the basic facilities and quality facilities.

Drahust said in a phone interview that the ESPLOST funds would be used to renovate Staley Middle School, including a roof in badly needed repair. The funds would also be used to renovate at least four other schools as well as replace old buses and update computers.  "There's a lot of renovation needed," he said.

Councilmember Eddie Rhea Walker, also a graduate of the all-black high school, said in an interview that she had heard that the school was going to be torn down with the ESPLOST funds and had approached McMahon and other county school officials with her concerns. Walker said she was told tearing down Staley only was considered as an option year's back. "If I thought they were seriously considering tearing down Staley, I would be the first one to fight it," Walker said.