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Our local hospital in a county of 30K+ was bought by the regional medical giant years ago. They then pressured every small private practice, using admitting privileges and subsidized malpractice, to join, locate their offices in the new Medical Arts building, and go to salary. The pensions of the workers in the former private practices were slashed. In-patient rooms were slashed. Wellness became the buzzword. There was the beginnings of an attempt to pressure massage therapists, athletic trainers and exercise instructors to join the Wellness Center, pay rent, pay for linen service and work for minimum wage. This failed, as did the plan to purchase a property for this Center. However, the community pool, initially paid for under a bequest, cannot pull in users and is simply a huge ongoing expense. The heated therapy lap pool survives. The PT department is kept on a tight reign, appointments limited per patient and is really just a gym where one-two PTs supervise 15 patients at a time, each limited to 3 sessions paid by insurance, the remaining sessions, if elected, billed so high, few can continue. The trendy and pricey restaurant established on-site, continues.

The ER charges went from $150 for a simple admittance only to $1000, plus a meds vending machine that took credit cards and overcharged, even during the daytime work week, even though there is a Walgreen’s and a Walmart in town and the hospital has a pharmacy. There were then at least a couple of unfortunate ER physician hires, one a foreign MD who was emotionally abusive to women and who refused to fill standing orders for meds without explaining to the patients that those meds were in shortage. Instead, he threatened them to never ever attempt to receive those pain meds in that ER ever again. Another ER hire was escorted out by LEO and everyone on staff has remained totally silent on the whys for the past 18 months.Prior to this, the area MDs all worked 1-2 shifts in the ER on rotation, so there was no need for Emergency Physicians as such. The ER was expertly run by a former military triage RN with more injury, trauma and surgical experience than any of the MDs.

There is an Urgent Care and a Wellness Clinic, separate from the ER. All the EMTs in this area are volunteer, supported by the townships. There are 2 outlying clinics that cater to low income, Amish and one is volunteer-staffed and free to the patient. The main major medical center is 45 miles away. Many, if not most, of its charges are rejected by most insurance companies on the grounds that they are too high. It is recognized as the most expensive medical center in the State.

Is it better than nothing? Sure. Is it as appreciated and beloved as it was prior to the sale? Of course not. As our older MDs retire, the new hires are all quite liberal and content to work under zer0care and all the new rules, including intrusive questioning, expensive initial appointments with PAs prior to being allowed an MD appointment and the clinic waiting room area is now like a tomb. Everyone says they are super busy, but the few times I have been there, it has been nearly empty, but there were still two desk attendants. The one time I was in the ER, there was one other patient, the various levels of clinician staff were rotated through their allowed procedures with each of us and spent the hour I observed mostly gossiping with the clerk at the ward desk. The real work I observed was done by a CNA.

This hospital was established over 50 years ago with a bequest. Our large number of clinicians in 5 private group practices and a few holdout individual ones, thrived. The clinical staff turnover has increased.

Bender2’s mom may have kept her job, but perhaps it became less of a calling. It isn’t the hospital that drives the town. Instead, a trendy private school draws in clinicians to the area. Without the hospital, these clinicians would still live here and either commute or would have joined/established private clinics. Instead, today, they are hired from the regional medical center and assigned here.