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The following is a letter written by Bainbridge resident Frank Loeffler to Memorial Hospital and Manor CEO Jim Lambert. It was submitted to The Post-Searchlight to be shared with its readers.

Dear Mr. Lambert:

As a result of an injury I incurred away from home on December 23, 2019, I ended up at the Grady Trauma ICU in Atlanta Georgia for approximately four weeks. My situation there was life threatening due,to some complications, but by the Grace of God, I made a turn around, and eventually reached the point in my care where I could be transferred to Memorial Hospital. I was under the care of your facility for the next four weeks.

While I give a lot of credit and thanks to the entire team at Grady Hospital for saving my life, I am writing to you because your team at Memorial Hospital picked up where Grady left off and integrally brought me to the point of finally being able to go home for my outpatient care after enduring a very long and very difficult medical journey.

I would like to start by acknowledging two doctors who followed my case closely from Bainbridge through correspondence with the Grady ICU team. Dr. Charles Walker and Dr. Mallory McRae are to be credited for their proactive efforts to make available medical history as was needed and to provide the collaborative efforts needed to get me home the minute it was safe to do so. Dr. Walker worked above and beyond to create a well planned scenario of transfer to Memorial Hospital by lining up the specific entities and approvals that would need to be in process when that time came. Dr. Walker’s efforts eliminated the lag time that probably would have occurred, knowing that typically I would have been transferred to a regular level of care at Grady before the option to transfer home. We knew this would be a worthless delay and what I needed was to head south. I needed to come to Bainbridge; I needed to come home. He knew that, my family knew that and I desperately was ready for that.

From the minute I arrived at your facility, I started receiving stellar care that continued until the day I was wheeled out of your front doors to go home through MY front door. I am so thankful to every single person who provided any type of service during my stay. No one person or department stands out because I can fairly and honestly say that everyone was friendly, professional, compassionate and without a doubt concerned about my health and getting me well enough to go home. It is easy to describe them all as family, and we can never say thank you enough to all of them for being so good to my wife and I during those four weeks under your care. I wish I could name each and every person, but I fear I would leave off a name inadvertently.

Through this letter, I hope that I am able to pass along my eternal thanks and sincere accolades to them all. We want all of them to know that “Mr. Frank and Miss Suzy” love them and will never forget them.

Please make sure that the staffers are acknowledged: CNAs, Dining, Housekeeping, Lab, Nurses, Occupational Therapy, Pharmacy, Physical Therapy, Respiratory Therapy, Quality /Social Services and my Physicians. If I left out anyone behind the scenes, I thank them as well.

With a sincere and grateful heart,

Frank Loeffler