Restored emergency services in Smith County cares for over 3,200 patients in first year

• Grant funds through the Health Resources and Services Administration assisted in returning emergency care to Smith County where none had been available for decades as well as in the renovation of Covington County Hospital.

Covington County Hospital is using the last half of a $4 million grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) to renovate its hospital after nearly $2 million went to restore emergency care in Smith County.

The hospital system utilized the first half of the grant to complete a project last year that brought emergency services back to Smith County, an area that has been without those services for decades. Smith County Emergency Hospital is an extension of Covington County Hospital, a county-owned entity.

Reopening Smith County Emergency Hospital in Raleigh through the utilization of the grant funds has positively affected healthcare in that region of Mississippi. 

“So, we renovated the building in Raleigh and opened up Smith County Emergency Hospital, which put emergency services back in the community that had been missing those emergency services for roughly three decades,” said David Culpepper, Director of Marketing and Communications for Covington County Hospital. “That project is complete. We started seeing patients at that location on February 11, 2025.”

In the first year since the facility reopened, Culpepper said 3,287 patients have been seen.

“That’s 3,287 patients that would have had to drive a minimum of 35 minutes to seek care,” Culpepper noted. 

There are no long-term beds or rooms at the facility. Instead, patients who need extended care are transported to nearby facilities geared toward non-emergency services. 

“Think about Smith County, Mississippi, but it is roughly 14,000 people in the county and it is huge. It is spread out,” Culpepper explained. “You have to go 35 minutes one direction to get to McGee or Mendenhall, another 35 minutes in one direction to get to Collins or Covington County, or 35 minutes in another direction to get to Laurel or Jones County. So, putting this there was a godsend.”

Since there are no long-term rooms, the average stay of a patients at Smith County Emergency Hospital is about 82 minutes.

In the first year of resuming services, 266 patients were transferred to the appropriate higher level care facility or trauma care. However, some outpatient care is offered. 

“We do offer outpatient testing for labs, radiology and respiratory testing,” Culpepper described. “We’ve had 7,090 lab tests performed there.”

The facility also performed more than 1,000 CT scans in that time.  

Work, as part of the second half of the grant, is currently underway at Covington County Hospital. That $2 million is being used to enhance patient experience.

“The renovations are all patient centered, with the patient experience in mind,” Culpepper said. 

The renovations are centralizing outpatient registration and the outpatient waiting area, along with installing new energy efficient windows on the exterior of the facility. Work also includes two new porticos, or places where people can exit vehicles and enter the facility out of the weather. One portico is being installed at the main entrance and the other at the outpatient registration entrance. 

“This is where you can pull two vehicles up and they can let people out in the weather so they won’t get wet,” Culpepper said.

Renovation work at Covington County Hospital began in April and is expected to be complete within the next eight to ten months. 

A match for both projects was not required as part of the grant.