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Impact of Hospital Closures
- Increased Travel Times: Closing a rural hospital removes the only local option for care, forcing residents to travel much farther for treatment. For emergency conditions like heart attacks, strokes, or severe trauma, this added travel time can be fatal.
- Delayed or Forgone Care: The inconvenience and cost of traveling to a distant hospital can lead people to delay or forego necessary care, negatively affecting health outcomes.
- Impact on Vulnerable Populations: Studies show that patients with longer-term hospitalizations and those from lower-income brackets may face a significantly higher risk of death after a hospital closure.
- Economic Factors: The closures are often driven by financial issues, such as lower reimbursement rates from Medicare and Medicaid for rural hospitals, making it difficult for them to stay open.
Real-World Examples
- Glenn Medical Center: The closure of this sole hospital in a rural California county left nearly 28,000 people with no local emergency care, potentially increasing the risk of death for those who cannot access care quickly enough.
- Sacred Heart Hospital: In Wisconsin, the closure of Sacred Heart Hospital led to worsened conditions and even deaths, according to first responders and residents, due to the longer distances for necessary treatments.
- Tonopah, Nevada: After its hospital closed in 2015, residents were left questioning how they would survive without local doctors and faced panic over the increased travel time to the nearest hospital.
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