Hospital Employs 175 People Here

With 175 total employees, Jasper Health Services, which includes Jasper Memorial Hospital (JMH), The Retreat Nursing Home and the two Primary Care Centers, is one of the largest employers in Jasper County.

The back bone of Jasper Health Services lies in the back corridors and the back building of the complex and in those people who work in these spaces. These departments and their employees keep the operations of JMH, The Retreat and Primary Care Centers running smoothly.

Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Robert Cumbie, RPh, has an office in both places, one as the top administrator for JMH with an office in the back building and one as a part-time pharmacist located down the hallway in the pharmacy, his first love.

Cumbie’s mother was a Pharmacy Technician and he knew in high school that he wanted to be a pharmacist. Going to college and pharmacy school at the University of Georgia, he began his career at JMH in 2010 as a part-time pharmacist. In 2013 he became the full time pharmacist and in January 2023, he was tapped to be the CEO. He still gets to wear his pharmacist’s hat, working part time for the JMH pharmacy, filling in when needed and rotating on call weeks with JMH’s current full time pharmacist, Jane Conyers.

When he’s not working, Cumbie enjoys spending time with his wife Michelle and their four children. He also spends his time as a trombone player in the Monticello Community Band.

Full time JMH pharmacist Jane Conyers started her work as a pharmacist as a second career, having been a church receptionist for years prior to her becoming a Pharmacist. After watching her son walk across his graduation stage, Conyers decided to go back to school herself and she chose pharmacy school. After graduating Mercer University College of Pharmacy in 2017, she worked in Publix Pharmacies for Conyers for almost six years. In 2017 she started part time at JMH and in 2023 took over as the full time pharmacist at JMH.

Conyers enjoys playing with her grandchild and refinishing furniture during her off time.

The JMH Pharmacy serves as an over the counter retail pharmacy for the residents of the Retreat, as an inpatient pharmacy for hospital patients and as a no cost pharmacy for all full time employees of JMH, the Retreat and the Primary Care Center. It is capable of filling most prescriptions, typically keeping enough types and doses of drugs on hand for most cases admitted into the hospital. JMH uses Monticello Drugs as a back up resource and is almost always able to fill a necessary prescription the same or next business day.

There’s a saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” But if it is broken, JMH, the Retreat and the Primary Care Centers call on Ricky Haizlip and Gregg Rooks to fix it. They handle all maintenance issues, most plumbing and electrical needs and when possible minor Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) issues. On-call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, the men do everything from changing light bulbs, reglazing the JMH roof steeple to maintaining the grounds at the newly added Primary Care North (located across from Larry’s 4-way).

Haizlip, currently the Engineering Manager in the Facilities/Maintenance department has worked at JMH for the past 13 years. He went to school for HVAC.

Gregg Rooks enjoys working with his hands which is exactly what his job in maintenance allows him to do. He worked for the maintenance department at GA Pacific for four years before coming to JMH. He enjoys the short commute he has to work and, according to Rooks, he enjoys the good people he has to work with at JMH.

He and Haizlip both spoke of their workplace with pride, describing the hospital as a good facility that takes care of its patients and the Retreat nursing home as giving its residents the best care. They described their workplace with equal affection, describing it as a very family oriented place with everybody always working together and helping each other.

The workshop and facilities office, complete with a small work table surrounded by work tools any tool enthusiast would lust after, is located in the new two story building at the back of the complex. It was a much needed and appreciated space for Haizlip and Rooks. “It’s definitely an improvement of the shed we used to work in,” said Hazlip.

Alternating on call weeks, the two of them can fix whatever needs to be fixed and thanks to their close proximity to home, can be at JMH in a flash should something go wrong.

Hidden in a back corner of the new building lies Medical Records. Working in the corner cubby is Monica Loftin, a ten year employee. She started her career at JMH as a volunteer and jumped at the opportunity for a full time position when it became available. “There is a great work environment here,” Loftin said.

Loftin is responsible for taking minutes of medical staff meetings and for all of the medical coding of patients’ records. JMH began the process of Electronics Medical Records (EMR) in 2017 and they are slowly adding/scanning prior years of hard copy medical records, that date back as far as 2003, into the EMR system.

“I like to handle the patients records, to document them and code them. I get to be a story teller,” Loftin said, smiling. “The records tell the story of the patients through their codes and describe in detail what the patient needs. It helps us get the patients what they need. It’s a challenge, but it’s a good challenge,“ she shared, appreciating the importance of documentation and its role in the patient’s outcome.

Close by medical records is Purchasing, home for the last five years to Seti Lefauaitu. Originally from the Island of Samoa, Lefauaitu made her way to Milledgeville via family in the area and found her way to JMH. This summer, she has the help of summer intern Hayden Carey, a Forestry major at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College (ABAC), who is spending his summer at the Purchasing Department learning the business ends of a workplace.

The Purchasing department orders and distributes all supplies and equipment for each department, making weekly supply orders for office, laundry and medical supplies. Purchasing, like Facilities, also works for each branch of the Jasper Health Services umbrella.

“The people here are so nice,” Lafauaitu said. “I enjoy the people. I get to work along side some great people. And the job, I like the job. I want to go back to school and be a nurse,” she added.

For almost 28 years Sonja Jackson has worked in the Dietary department. Serving both the Retreat and JMH, and until Covid the community at large, her department cooks 3 meals a day, 7 days a week, accommodating special dietary needs and sometimes snacks in between meals. “I have a good group of people I work with,” Jackson said, “it makes it easy to do my job.”

Like many of the 175 people who work in one of the three branches of Jasper Primary Services, Jackson is a Jasper County native. She started her career in the Dietary department as a part-time dishwasher and gradually began cooking, starting off as a breakfast cook and then adding lunch and dinner. She began helping with paperwork and started taking training classes on line to become the Dietary manager and she has an Associates Degree in HealthCare Management.

Jackson’s primary job now is management and ensuring the patients and residents have their meals. She also fills in as needed for any cooking or dishwashing duties, living up to her fellow employees standards and beliefs that the employees do help each other and pitch in when needed and really are the backbone of JMH, the Retreat and the Primary Care Centers.