SPRINGFIELD -- Everyone who entered the Effingham Medical Partners office on Thursday was feeling good, especially Dr. Joseph Ratchford.

Ratchford and his Effingham Medical Partners associate, Dr. Prakash Patel, cut the ribbon on their new facility at 1571 Ga. Hwy 21 South. They, along with their thrilled staff, celebrated the occasion with a grand opening that included many of their patients and Effingham County Chamber of Commerce members.

The new Effingham Medical Partners office is more than twice as large as the former one on the nearby campus of Effingham Health System.

“It’s a little over 8,000 square feet here,” Ratchford said. “Over there, we had almost 4,000 square feet. It is not elbow to elbow anymore.

“Thank God.”

Patients will undoubtedly have a better experience in the new office. It features a spacious waiting room with a giant television, plus 17 examination rooms, two treatment areas and a laboratory.

In addition, the patient restrooms are large and handicapped accessible.

“We tried to plan all that,” Ratchford said. “We had a whole lot of help from a whole lot of folks. That’s for sure.”

South Atlantic Engineering of Rincon drew up the building plan. Ann Smith Wilson and Toss Allen were also key contributors to the finished product.

Ratchford and his wife, Mona, made the choices for the wall colors, flooring, etc. 

“It really wasn’t all that  tough,” Ratchford said. “Ann helped us preview some stuff. She asked what colors we liked and that kind of stuff.

“That gave us a smaller selection to look at it and it was really easy.”

The new office is lighter, brighter and easier to negotiate. 

“The staff is much happier,” Ratchford said. “They are not running over each other and they can spread out a little bit, and take care of folks. It’s been a good thing.”

There wasn’t a lot of time for the doctors to transition to the new office. They closed the old one Jan. 31 and opened the new one Feb. 4.

“We took that Friday off and then opened the new one that Monday,” Ratchford said. “It was a big weekend.”

Fortunately, it wasn’t necessary to box up patient and business records for the move. They are all computerized.

“The big thing was getting the larger equipment that we have over here — the tables and all that stuff,” Ratchford said. “That was a big thing — and then finding it all once we got over here. It was amazing once we moved 29 years worth of stuff from over there.

“We didn’t know we had that much stuff.”

“It was like the clown car,” Practice Manager Julie Salter added. “How did we cram all that stuff in that old building? There aren’t a lot of empty spaces in this one.

“The majority of what we have came from over there except some of the furniture.”

The new office was built with the future in mind.

“If we ever need to add exam rooms, we are prepared for that,” Salter said. “This building is built to handle it.”

Ratchford said he never feared the new builders wouldn’t have the facility ready on time. Ground was broken for it in July 2018.

“They kept assuring me they had it (under control),” he said with a laugh. “I told them, ‘That’s good because we are moving on February 4. Y’all might be around us but we are going to be there, too. They really worked hard.”

The grand opening was an opportunity for Effingham Medical Partners to thank their patients for their support. In November 2017, many of them vigorously protested after the Effingham Hospital Authority notified Ratchford and Patel that they would receive only a six-month lease offer on their former space. Previously, the lease rolled over each year, ending every October.

At an authority meeting a month later, nearly 100 Ratchford supporters asked the board, some tearfully and some angrily, to reconsider their decision. They strongly defended Ratchford and said forcing him to move his practice to Rincon until his new office was built would cause them undue hardship.

On Jan. 10, 2018, the authority backtracked, approving a 24-month lease.

“We wanted people to be able to come see the new building and also thank those who supported us during all of that,” Salter said. “We wanted them to see how they helped us because they enabled us to have more time to build the building that we have. Without that time, we would have had to come up with a quick solution and it would have delayed this happening.

“They helped us do things right the first time.”