Quote:
Originally Posted by scarecrow1
I think it's time to be building more hospitals instead of golf courses to handle the overflow of sick people or at least double up on the help in the emergency room. My suggestion is not to go to the emergency room after the urgent care centers are closed. They could at least have a couple of nurse practitioners handy to handle the non emergencies so people with emergencies can and should receive the prompt and proper care after hours. I was in the emergency business for 8 years back in the eighties and it reminded me of that era of practice. They really need to update their triage and way of organization of their emergency treatments.
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I share your frustration - I did 2 trips in 3 days with each parent. And I decided not to vent my reactions as I know that I will need to use them again. Let's just say it is the good, the bad, and the ugly and leave it at that.
Building hospital capacity is not as simple as it would appear. Before you can begin, you need a certificate of need, usually issued by a state agency. This is to prevent overbuilding of hospitals and situations where everyone goes bankrupt. The data for the certificate application is based on previous years, not on future projections. Thus, the applications for enlarging The Villages hospital were probably based on 10 year old population numbers.
Add to it that "neighboring" hospitals get to weigh in - and the hospitals in Ocala are very much aware that the population center is shifting here from Ocala (yes, the day is coming where they will be a suburb of The Villages). They are very unhappy about hospital beds down here, especially since they constantly lose money on Monroe Regional, which is owned by the county.
Reality? TVRH will not be a "major" hospital in our lifetimes. It is a generally OK place for its size. If you need "major league" services, it is worth the drive to one of the majors in Orlando. (For those of us who have lived in rural areas, the need to drive 1+ hours to a major hospital isn't as strange as it may be to city folks.)