[Villages Kahuna]

I only used the TVRH ER once myself. My problem was skin infection that was not responding to treatment. I was referred to the ER by my physician. There was only one doctor active that Sunday afternoon. The wait was a couple of hours, but once I was seen the treatment was very good. I say that in the context of having lived in Chicago and having ready access to several trauma centers and a couple of the best teaching hospitals in the country.

I don't think we should forget how quickly the population of this area is growing and how the local infrastructure is struggling to keep up. The Villages sold 274 homes in March, a few more than that in May, and the pace of sales continues. At the community average of 1.9 people per household, that's a population increase of over 500 people per month! That's more than 6,000 people per year. Heck, my suburban village on Chicago's north shore only had a population of 2,200!

TVRH just cut the ribbon on a beautiful addition that more than doubled the size of the hospital. I've read that the hospital employs several people whose full-time job is to recruit new doctors and staff for the hospital. They are certainly not in a simple "wait for applications to come in" mode.

Will enough medical professionals move to our area to satisfy the needs of The Villages and the surrounding area? That's almost a certainty. It'll be easier once The Villages is built out and the population stabilizes. Recruiting and attracting qualified medical professionals is a bit more complicated than opening a restaurant or hardware store.

So I might ask whether we might be edging on unreasonable impatience? We should expect good service for sure. The POA should keep the spotlight of transparency on the issue, so long as they do it responsibly. But I don't think it's reasonable to expect that all parts of the infrastructure serving a rapidly growing population can be expected to maintain desired levels of service throughout the growth process.

Hopefully, none of us gets sick enough to have to experience the delays being experienced by some. But in the parlance of the day...shouldn't we all "chill" just a bit regarding the hard-working folks at TVRH? My guess is that they're working just about as hard as they can on this problem.