Dealing With Hospital Closure, Pioneer Kansas Town Asks: What Comes Next?
A slight drizzle had begun in the gray December sky outside Community Christian Church as Reta Baker, president of the local hospital, stepped through the doors to join a weekly morning coffee organized by Fort Scott’s chamber of commerce.
The town manager was there, along with the franchisee of the local McDonald’s, an insurance agency owner and the receptionist from the big auto sales lot. Baker, who grew up on a farm south of town, knew them all.
Still, she paused in the doorway with her chin up to take in the scene. Then, lowering her voice, she admitted: “Nobody talked to me after the announcement.”
Just a few months before, Baker — joining with the hospital’s owner, St. Louis-based Mercy — announced the 132-year-old hospital would close. Baker carefully orchestrated face-to-face meetings with doctors, nurses, city leaders and staff members in the final days of September and on Oct. 1. Afterward, she sent written notices to the staff and local newspaper.
For the 7,800 people of Fort Scott, about 90 miles south of Kansas City, the hospital’s closure was a loss they never imagined possible, sparking anger and fear.
“Babies are going to be dying,” said longtime resident Darlene Doherty, who was at the coffee. “This is a disaster.”
Bourbon County Sheriff Bill Martin stopped before leaving the gathering to say the closure has “a dark side.” And Dusty Drake, the lead minister at Community Christian Church, diplomatically said people have “lots of questions,” adding that members of his congregation will lose their jobs.
Yet, even as this town deals with the trauma of losing a beloved institution, deeper national questions underlie the struggle: Do small communities like this one need a traditional hospital at all? And, if not, what health care do they need?
Sisters of Mercy nuns first opened Fort Scott’s 10-bed frontier hospital in 1886— a time when traveling 30 miles to see a doctor was unfathomable and when most medical treatments were so primitive they could be dispensed almost anywhere.
Now, driving the four-lane highway north to Kansas City or crossing the state line to Joplin, Mo., is a day trip that includes shopping and a stop at your favorite restaurant. The bigger hospitals there offer the latest sophisticated treatments and equipment.
And when patients here get sick, many simply go elsewhere. An average of nine patients stayed in Mercy Hospital Fort Scott’s more than 40 beds each day from July 2017 through June 2018. And these numbers are not uncommon: Forty-five Kansas hospitals report an average daily census of fewer than two patients.
James Cosgrove, who directed a recent U.S. Government Accountability Office study about rural hospital closures, said the nation needs a better understanding of what the closures mean to the health of people in rural America, where the burden of disease — from diabetes to cancer — is often greater than in urban areas.
What happens when a 70-year-old grandfather falls on ice and must choose between staying home and driving to the closest emergency department, 30 miles away? Where does the sheriff’s deputy who picks up an injured suspect take his charge for medical clearance before going to jail? And how does a young mother whose toddler fell against the coffee table and now has a gaping head wound cope?
There is also the economic question of how the hospital closure will affect the town’s demographic makeup since, as is often the case in rural America, Fort Scott’s hospital is a primary source of well-paying jobs and attracts professionals to the community.
As Fort Scott deals with the trauma of losing a beloved institution, deeper national questions underlie the struggle: Do small, rural communities need a traditional hospital at all? And if not, how will they get the health care they need? (...)
Mercy Hospital Fort Scott joined a growing list of more than 100 rural hospitals that have closed nationwide since 2010, according to data from the University of North Carolina’s Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research. How the town copes is a window into what comes next.
‘We Were Naive’
Over time, Mercy became so much a part of the community that parents expected to see the hospital’s ambulance standing guard at the high school’s Friday night football games.
Mercy’s name was seemingly everywhere, actively promoting population health initiatives by working with the school district to lower children’s obesity rates as well as local employers on diabetes prevention and healthy eating programs — worthy but, often, not revenue generators for the hospital.
“You cannot take for granted that your hospital is as committed to your community as you are,” said Fort Scott City Manager Dave Martin. “We were naive.”
Indeed, in 2002 when Mercy decided to build the then-69-bed hospital, residents raised $1 million out of their own pockets for construction. Another million was given by residents to the hospital’s foundation for upgrading and replacing the hospital’s equipment.
“Nobody donated to Mercy just for it to be Mercy’s,” said Bill Brittain, a former city and county commissioner. The point was to have a hospital for Fort Scott.
by Sarah Jane Tribble, Kaiser Health News | Read more:
Image: Christopher Smith
[ed. And, in other Health News, see also: Hidden FDA Reports Detail Harm Caused By Scores Of Medical Devices (KHN).]
A slight drizzle had begun in the gray December sky outside Community Christian Church as Reta Baker, president of the local hospital, stepped through the doors to join a weekly morning coffee organized by Fort Scott’s chamber of commerce.
The town manager was there, along with the franchisee of the local McDonald’s, an insurance agency owner and the receptionist from the big auto sales lot. Baker, who grew up on a farm south of town, knew them all.
Still, she paused in the doorway with her chin up to take in the scene. Then, lowering her voice, she admitted: “Nobody talked to me after the announcement.”Just a few months before, Baker — joining with the hospital’s owner, St. Louis-based Mercy — announced the 132-year-old hospital would close. Baker carefully orchestrated face-to-face meetings with doctors, nurses, city leaders and staff members in the final days of September and on Oct. 1. Afterward, she sent written notices to the staff and local newspaper.
For the 7,800 people of Fort Scott, about 90 miles south of Kansas City, the hospital’s closure was a loss they never imagined possible, sparking anger and fear.
“Babies are going to be dying,” said longtime resident Darlene Doherty, who was at the coffee. “This is a disaster.”
Bourbon County Sheriff Bill Martin stopped before leaving the gathering to say the closure has “a dark side.” And Dusty Drake, the lead minister at Community Christian Church, diplomatically said people have “lots of questions,” adding that members of his congregation will lose their jobs.
Yet, even as this town deals with the trauma of losing a beloved institution, deeper national questions underlie the struggle: Do small communities like this one need a traditional hospital at all? And, if not, what health care do they need?
Sisters of Mercy nuns first opened Fort Scott’s 10-bed frontier hospital in 1886— a time when traveling 30 miles to see a doctor was unfathomable and when most medical treatments were so primitive they could be dispensed almost anywhere.
Now, driving the four-lane highway north to Kansas City or crossing the state line to Joplin, Mo., is a day trip that includes shopping and a stop at your favorite restaurant. The bigger hospitals there offer the latest sophisticated treatments and equipment.
And when patients here get sick, many simply go elsewhere. An average of nine patients stayed in Mercy Hospital Fort Scott’s more than 40 beds each day from July 2017 through June 2018. And these numbers are not uncommon: Forty-five Kansas hospitals report an average daily census of fewer than two patients.
James Cosgrove, who directed a recent U.S. Government Accountability Office study about rural hospital closures, said the nation needs a better understanding of what the closures mean to the health of people in rural America, where the burden of disease — from diabetes to cancer — is often greater than in urban areas.
What happens when a 70-year-old grandfather falls on ice and must choose between staying home and driving to the closest emergency department, 30 miles away? Where does the sheriff’s deputy who picks up an injured suspect take his charge for medical clearance before going to jail? And how does a young mother whose toddler fell against the coffee table and now has a gaping head wound cope?
There is also the economic question of how the hospital closure will affect the town’s demographic makeup since, as is often the case in rural America, Fort Scott’s hospital is a primary source of well-paying jobs and attracts professionals to the community.
As Fort Scott deals with the trauma of losing a beloved institution, deeper national questions underlie the struggle: Do small, rural communities need a traditional hospital at all? And if not, how will they get the health care they need? (...)
Mercy Hospital Fort Scott joined a growing list of more than 100 rural hospitals that have closed nationwide since 2010, according to data from the University of North Carolina’s Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research. How the town copes is a window into what comes next.
‘We Were Naive’
Over time, Mercy became so much a part of the community that parents expected to see the hospital’s ambulance standing guard at the high school’s Friday night football games.
Mercy’s name was seemingly everywhere, actively promoting population health initiatives by working with the school district to lower children’s obesity rates as well as local employers on diabetes prevention and healthy eating programs — worthy but, often, not revenue generators for the hospital.
“You cannot take for granted that your hospital is as committed to your community as you are,” said Fort Scott City Manager Dave Martin. “We were naive.”
Indeed, in 2002 when Mercy decided to build the then-69-bed hospital, residents raised $1 million out of their own pockets for construction. Another million was given by residents to the hospital’s foundation for upgrading and replacing the hospital’s equipment.
“Nobody donated to Mercy just for it to be Mercy’s,” said Bill Brittain, a former city and county commissioner. The point was to have a hospital for Fort Scott.
by Sarah Jane Tribble, Kaiser Health News | Read more:
Image: Christopher Smith
[ed. And, in other Health News, see also: Hidden FDA Reports Detail Harm Caused By Scores Of Medical Devices (KHN).]
