Weems Memorial is Still doing the Quiet Work |
A conversation with Colleen and Bill Zester |
Photo Weems Memorial
Weems Memorial Hospital sits on Avenue G in Apalachicola, same spot it has occupied for more than 65 years. What people sometimes miss is the second half of that sentence: it is the hospital for all of Franklin County.
That was the point Colleen Zester kept coming back to when we sat down with her and her husband, Bill. Colleen chairs the Weems Memorial Healthcare Foundation. Bill is vice chair of the hospital board. They moved here about five years ago, retired, and put their time into a place they say they fell in love with because it still feels like a small town.
“When I say community, I don’t mean Apalachicola,” Colleen said. “Weems Memorial Hospital happens to sit in Apalachicola… but it serves all of Franklin County.”
What the Foundation has already put on the ground
The Foundation’s job, as Colleen described it, is straightforward: keep the care, the education, and the building matched to what people here actually need. Recent work includes:
None of that, she said, happens without local donations and business sponsorships. “Those things are only possible with the community support.”
Two years ago, the Foundation, through a partnership with Pink Out and Weems Memorial, also helped bring a new mammogram into the hospital so screenings could happen here instead of somewhere else.
Carrabelle’s pharmacy — and why it matters
Bill’s first item was the one a lot of East Franklin readers will feel in their bones. Carrabelle has not had a pharmacy in about 10 years. People have been driving to Crawfordville or all the way to Apalachicola for prescriptions.
“It’s been in a pharmacy desert out there,” he said.
The notion of bringing a pharmacy back to Carrabelle has been ongoing for close to 10 years. They are now taking construction bids and expect to break ground this year. Colleen called it one of the things they are most excited about.
After that, the next large project they hope to take up with the county is an emergency-room upgrade, likely next year once the pharmacy is moving.
New machines, closer to home
A new CT is already in the building and, Bill said, should be online in the next couple of months.
If this year’s Foundation event does well, Colleen said they want to underwrite software so that same CT suite can also offer DEXA bone-density screening. She framed it as “stronger bones, stronger community” — a lot of women here still have to leave town for that test.
Weems is also opening its physical therapy room beyond the hospital’s swing-bed patients. Swing-bed is the program that lets a Franklin County resident recover closer to home after surgery or an injury in Tallahassee or elsewhere. Speech, occupational, and physical therapy are part of that. The change Bill described is simple: people who are not staying at Weems would still be able to come in for PT.
Every dollar stays here
Colleen was careful to separate two boards that now, she and Bill both said, are pulling in the same direction as the county commission: the hospital board and the Foundation.
The line she wanted people to leave with was this: every dollar the Foundation raises comes back to the hospital. The building is in Apalachicola. The work is for the county.
Rising Tides Lift All Boats II
The Foundation’s main fundraiser is in its third year.
Dinner, new music, a silent auction. Sponsorships and auction donations are welcome. Tickets are through the Foundation, not the Yacht Club, and Colleen said they are moving fast again.
How to help
We’ll add short video clips from the conversation here as they go up.
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Colleen Zester, chair of the Weems Memorial Hospital Foundation, on why the hospital is here for all of Franklin County. |
Colleen Zester on Rising Tides Lift All Boats: last year’s event sold out at the Yacht Club — here’s how to get tickets for November. |
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