TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) — "Oh he's excited," exclaimed Debbie McCoy.
Thomas McCoy and his wife Debbie, both got COVID-19 in late July. Debbie kept a close eye on both of them and saw Thomas wasn't doing well, so he spent a couple of weeks at TMH.
Doctors told Debbie McCoy they were not hopeful. But then, things turned around. His symptoms got better and his oxygen levels started to improve. That's when they sent him to Select Specialty Hospital of Tallahassee.
"It's a great hospital the other day my daughter was in her dad's room and he told her that angels work here," Debbie McCoy said.
They take the sickest patients from larger hospitals in a two-hour radius from Tallahassee and provide long-term acute care.
Thomas McCoy, a Marine veteran, is a few days away from being discharged, so his family wanted to surprise him by buying an army green truck and delivering it right out front.
"He can't wait to get in it and drive it he said he was going to drive home but I don't think so he can ride home," said Debbie McCoy.
A 48-bed facility, right now, over half of their 41 patients in-house are recovering from COVID-19. Most of the doctors that work there rotate from bigger hospitals nearby and often care for some of the same patients that got transferred needing longer to recover.
CEO of Select Specialty Hospital of Tallahassee, Jay Faherty, said, "if we weren't here those patients would be staying in those facilities for a longer period of time and really just backing up the emergency rooms."
Faherty says most people aren't aware of what they do which is understandable because they only take patients referred by area ICUs.
"We are able to off-load those patients from the other hospitals so they can take other patients from their emergency room and get them admitted to the hospital," Faherty added.
Currently, over 90 percent of patients on their referral list that will be coming to Select Specialty Hospital of Tallahassee are recovering from COVID-19.
