[ThirdOfFive]

Originally Posted by ewstanley

We have been here for almost twenty years.
It has gotten worse in the last several years.
The Villages advertised a new hospital, but now there is no hospital.
Our doctors have all left and was just told that that four radiologists have left the area.
It isn't getting any better and I'm sure it will get worse.

"If you build it, they will come".

This shortage is not just in The Villages but in Florida as a whole. Checking the data, no part of Florida has what could be called adequate physician care. The entire state has a shortage of primary physicians and specialty care physicians: no part of the state is expected to have adequate specialist care by 2035 with most of the state having at best 80%. Primary care physician availability outlook is a bit better, but only the southern tip of the state:: Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, etc. are expected to have 100% of adequate primary care physician coverage but this does not extend to the rest of the state. ("Florida’s physician shortage: It’s not just primary care and rural areas", Jarrod Fowler, MHA FMA, Florida Medical Association Website, April 21, 2022).

Why? Who really knows? A couple of things that we DO know however is that people with money and the wherewithal to relocate are fleeing their high-tax, high-crime states like deranged lemmings in search of friendlier surroundings, and for most, those "friendlier surroundings" happens to be spelled FLORIDA. According to data I've read Florida has FOUR TIMES the influx of new people than does the next state in the row, Texas (might be wrong about Texas). These folks are also taking their money, their toys, and most importantly their spending power with them. It has led to some monumental problems at both ends: influx AND outflux. My home state of Minnesota for example as a stable population if you're just counting heads, but the people with the money are the ones scurrying south. They're being replaced mainly by third-worlders, recent immigrants who are steered toward Minnesota by Federal authorities as well as migrant farmhands, in addition to the more-than-sizeable resident population currently on welfare. This is not new: as far back as 2004 there was an article in one of the Twin Cities publications that put a financial value to it and even then it was multiple billions leaving the state every year. Today, with the multiple COVID messes and economic upheaval I'm sure it is far worse.

Second (conjecture on my part) it is probably a lot harder for a doctor to leave his/her practice than it is for a couple of retirees to pack up and skedaddle. Took us maybe three months after we made the decision but we had no notices to give, interviews to arrange, etc. etc. I'm pretty sure that with all that money leaving, the people who were formerly PAID with that money will be leaving as well, just a lot more slowly.

I don't know. That whole COVID thing blindsided a lot of people and the influx of folks to Florida overall, not just TV, has been unprecedented and could not have been planned for. I'm sure the medical situation will improve; maybe not fast enough for some, but it will. After all the money is here.