Post by wvumaryjane on Sept 16, 2008 18:01:04 GMT -5
This is gonna be a multi faceted vent regarding my particular situation here in Pensacola as well as very scary national trend.
On October 31 2008 My hospital will officially own another hospital in the area on the north end of town. The sad news for South and West Pensacola is that my hospital will officially be closing its doors shortly thereafter and moving North and East.
This is an abomination to the area and I can NOT understand why there is not more of a public OUTRAGE about it. The area of Pensacola with a population of 600,000 will go from having 3 major hospitals to two. The People on the South and West end (myself included) will have to travel at least 15-25 miles to get to the new hospital to get there. Baptist is the TRAUMA hospital. Most of the trauma happens on the South and West end of town.. So instead of an ambulance taking your butt to the hospital down the street Life Flight will be carrying these patients after ambulance intervention further.. Time is CRITICAL with trauma. those 10 or 15 minutes extra before getting to the hospital can sometimes determine life or death.
Our hospital ER has a typical 8 hour wait unless you're bleeding to death or having a stroke or heart attack because those patients take presidence obviously.. So now that there will only be 2 ERS to choose from instead of 3.... wait times for broken bones will be even longer and you'll have to travel farther to get there.
On a different level its VERY scary to think that essentially a whole hospital full of employees is gonna lose their job. That's about 3,000 people. Most of them are skilled health care professionals. For a health care worker to be layed off in a time that health care is increasingly in demand as the baby boomers are getting older is a reflection that things need to be changed in the health care industry as a whole.
Things changed in Pensacola and at Baptist dramatically after Hurricane Ivan in 2004 and its steadily gotten worse since then. In our specific case Ivan took away about 100,000 tourist industry based jobs that provided lots of people with a good career, and benefits. These people had either chose to leave Pensacola or make due finding a job, any job or sometimes two jobs just to make ends meet. Most of the time new employees weren't offeren any sort of health insurance package or was too expensive to fool with.
When people don't have health insurance they don't usually continue prevatative care, and usually won't go to to a Doc or the ER until they are VERY ill and its MORE expensive to treat them.
Some people go to the ER for ear infections and a plethora of other illnesses because they don't have a family doc..
Baptist has always taken in anyone regardless of their insurance or abilility to pay and up until Ivan here, we at least had enough of a payer mix to pay for the people who could not pay. Well as more and more people are losing their jobs here. Solutia and Bell south and Vanity Fair have ALL left the area as welll and there is NO growth for real careers. Tourism is beginning to pick up a LITLLE bit but that has also changed dramatically. Ivan wiped out a bunch of hotels and restaurants.. And hotels have been replaced by condos and condos don't have daily maid service or a restaunant downstairs that offers room service or a hot night club. We're also another Ivan for that to go away again for several years.
OK back tothe point here. What's going on in my community is going on all over the place. Hospitals are gonna close and probably some are already closing, and we need hospitals now more than we ever have.
Insurance companies need to be regulated and employers should be forced to offer reasonable health insurance policies (though government help for small businesses) . It can be done.. It can be done without socialized medicine. And it needs to happen NOW. Because I'm telling you now, that it doesn't matter IF you have insurance or not, your community hospital may be be going away in the near future and lines will be long in ERS and you'll have to travel father for services.
Its a totally scary trend and no one seems to be seeing it.
On October 31 2008 My hospital will officially own another hospital in the area on the north end of town. The sad news for South and West Pensacola is that my hospital will officially be closing its doors shortly thereafter and moving North and East.
This is an abomination to the area and I can NOT understand why there is not more of a public OUTRAGE about it. The area of Pensacola with a population of 600,000 will go from having 3 major hospitals to two. The People on the South and West end (myself included) will have to travel at least 15-25 miles to get to the new hospital to get there. Baptist is the TRAUMA hospital. Most of the trauma happens on the South and West end of town.. So instead of an ambulance taking your butt to the hospital down the street Life Flight will be carrying these patients after ambulance intervention further.. Time is CRITICAL with trauma. those 10 or 15 minutes extra before getting to the hospital can sometimes determine life or death.
Our hospital ER has a typical 8 hour wait unless you're bleeding to death or having a stroke or heart attack because those patients take presidence obviously.. So now that there will only be 2 ERS to choose from instead of 3.... wait times for broken bones will be even longer and you'll have to travel farther to get there.
On a different level its VERY scary to think that essentially a whole hospital full of employees is gonna lose their job. That's about 3,000 people. Most of them are skilled health care professionals. For a health care worker to be layed off in a time that health care is increasingly in demand as the baby boomers are getting older is a reflection that things need to be changed in the health care industry as a whole.
Things changed in Pensacola and at Baptist dramatically after Hurricane Ivan in 2004 and its steadily gotten worse since then. In our specific case Ivan took away about 100,000 tourist industry based jobs that provided lots of people with a good career, and benefits. These people had either chose to leave Pensacola or make due finding a job, any job or sometimes two jobs just to make ends meet. Most of the time new employees weren't offeren any sort of health insurance package or was too expensive to fool with.
When people don't have health insurance they don't usually continue prevatative care, and usually won't go to to a Doc or the ER until they are VERY ill and its MORE expensive to treat them.
Some people go to the ER for ear infections and a plethora of other illnesses because they don't have a family doc..
Baptist has always taken in anyone regardless of their insurance or abilility to pay and up until Ivan here, we at least had enough of a payer mix to pay for the people who could not pay. Well as more and more people are losing their jobs here. Solutia and Bell south and Vanity Fair have ALL left the area as welll and there is NO growth for real careers. Tourism is beginning to pick up a LITLLE bit but that has also changed dramatically. Ivan wiped out a bunch of hotels and restaurants.. And hotels have been replaced by condos and condos don't have daily maid service or a restaunant downstairs that offers room service or a hot night club. We're also another Ivan for that to go away again for several years.
OK back tothe point here. What's going on in my community is going on all over the place. Hospitals are gonna close and probably some are already closing, and we need hospitals now more than we ever have.
Insurance companies need to be regulated and employers should be forced to offer reasonable health insurance policies (though government help for small businesses) . It can be done.. It can be done without socialized medicine. And it needs to happen NOW. Because I'm telling you now, that it doesn't matter IF you have insurance or not, your community hospital may be be going away in the near future and lines will be long in ERS and you'll have to travel father for services.
Its a totally scary trend and no one seems to be seeing it.
