Thursday, July 03, 2014

Rural hospitals should never be closed.

The Hill - Burton Grant Act of 1946 (click here) established small community and rural hospitals all over the USA. The US federal government provided matching grants to communities. Those were monies the federal government saw necessary to protect the lives of Americans.

I gave the plight of Pungo Vidant Hospital in Belhaven a good deal of thought yesterday evening and I remembered something. 2010 saw a huge change in Republican state seats in North Carolina. More than had been in power for over one hundred years. North Carolina Republicans are vicious SOBs. There is no nice way to put it. It was later that year when they suspended the acceptance of Medicare at UNC Chapel Hill. Eventually, the hospital leadership persuaded the extremist state legislature to return function back to the citizens relying on UNC Chapel Hill for care. 

Then in 2011 the Republicans lost all respect when they enacted Senate Bill 33—formally known as the Medical Liability Reforms but simply called “tort reform."  It changed procedural rules and laws related to North Carolina’s medical malpractice law. What the law states is no physician carries any liability for deaths in emergency rooms.

I took a ride to several hospitals yesterday in the area. Baptist Wake Forest had a waiting time of over 4 hours. There was a young girl in the waiting room with her mother that had been there for 3 hours. She was having seizures.

The CEO of Baptist hospital is a man by the name of John D. McConnell, MD. The MD is questionable right now. 

In 2008, John D. McConnell, MD, (click here) was named as the first chief executive officer in the history of Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, the largest employer in the Piedmont Triad, including almost 90% of the region's physicians listed among the "Best Doctors in America."...

He sits in a chair in his office, but, from what I have read and observed on newscasts it would seem as though he belongs on a Parrot perch simply because any of his public statements parrots Republican dogma. For carrying out this 'parroting behavior' he has been given a brand new cancer center there on his campus.

Totaling more than 530,000 square feet, (click here) the cancer hospital is the largest cancer facility in the state and consolidates both outpatient and inpatient services into a single location. All inpatient rooms are private and filled with natural light, and include recliners and sleeper sofas to accommodate family members. 

He planned and built this monstrosity with tax payers money and in order to keep the treasury full enough to complete the building of it he laid off hospital personnel.

I think Wake Forest is a private hospital. The NC Republican legislature likes private anything including universities.

Posted: Wednesday, November 14, 2012 9:49 am
Updated: 2:22 pm, Thu Apr 11, 2013.
Richard Craver/Winston-Salem Journal


Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center (click here) has been warning since April that a workforce blow was coming to reflect the new economic realities of operating an academic medical center.
The hammer fell Wednesday when the center said it was eliminating 950 positions, including 475 held by current employees, by June 30 – the end of its 2012-13 fiscal year.
The restructuring is “designed to position the institution for success aligned with the challenges of health-care reform, federal budget deficits and a decline in research funding from The National Institutes of Health and private industry,” according to a statement from the center Wednesday....
CEO McConnell blames the Obama administration for all this trouble the people of Winston-Salem is experiencing and never the fact McCrory has his Republican state government refusing the Medicaid Expansion.

Vidant Health is the Trauma Center for Eastern North Carolina. Eastern North Carolina has a huge coastline. The size of the area is appreciated when realizing the state actually has two coastlines; the Intercoastal Waterway (click here), the actual state coastline and the coast line of the Outer Banks.
Vidant Health is insufficient to carry the responsibilities for the coastal needs of the state, especially considering the chances of tourists being injured while at the beach. It was Vidant Health that purchased and closed Pungo Vidant Hospital in Belhaven.

McCrory is real happy there is a hurricane coming, because he gets to call the people of North Carolina names.

Submitted by WWAY on Wed, 07/02/2014 - 1:52pm

..."Don't put your stupid hat on," (click here) McCrory said during a news conference at the New Hanover County Emergency Operations Center this afternoon. "Usually most injuries occur right before a storm or right after a storm, so especially on the coastal area, we want to make sure people don't try out the great waves before the storm comes, even though they are good waves. We don't want you to go into the ocean."...

If Governor McCrory believes there are people in the path of a hurricane and believes they are too stupid to take shelter, if there is any shelters, he should not have cut the state's education budget.

The Governor of North Carolina is rightfully calling attention to the hurricane as it makes it's way up the coast, but, besides enjoying his name calling of the people of his state, he is relieved attention can be diverted from his corrupt administration with all kinds of problems manifesting across the state, including water pollution and now it would seem a health care crisis with 'for profit' health organizations closing hospitals.

Pat McCrory is a perfect storm as a governor. He likes the state legislature and mostly goes along with their hideous priorities. He disagrees with them enough to maintain an image for re-election.

Pungo Vidant Hospital in Belhaven was closed even with 'human rights' cries of protecting human life. Why? Because Vidant doesn't have to worry about the deaths of the people in Belhaven because there is no financial liability to the health care organization when people die because of their decision.

I had lived in North Carolina for 11 years. One of the pride and joys of the state were the state of the art hospitals, world class physicians, world class state university system and it's compassion for the poor. At one time North Carolina was second to California for the preservation of wildlife and the appreciation for forests and coastal habitat. 

Since 2010, the North Carolina legislature along with a self-righteous governor has become a detriment to the people, corrupt to the core of the state's government, immoral to values of human health and human life and a hazard to the state's economy.

Pungo Vidant Hospital in Belhaven needs someone like Former Senator and UNC System President Erskine Bowels and Former Senator John Edwards to advocate and file a lawsuit against Vidant and the State of North Carolina for endangering human life with their reckless laws and indifference to the people of the state.

North Carolina has become dangerous and CEO's like John McConnell is a prime example of it. People will die in North Carolina emergency rooms and quite possibly before they reach the emergency room and it won't matter to anyone.

The State of North Carolina is currently run by ideologues. Why? Because they have no ideas, can't think worth a damn and get away with murder because they pass laws permitting it.

North Carolina (click here) Gov. Pat McCrory laughs as he shakes hands with Mitt Romney on Aug. 12, 2012, in High Point, N.C. Somewhere offstage, Art Pope is pulling the strings....

2013 proved to be a tumultuous year (click here) in North Carolina politics, and a leading journalist's TV show will examine the battles underway in a documentary that will begin airing this week -- and that draws on research by the Institute for Southern Studies, publisher of Facing South....