Hospital
 

We need another hospital. The problem is staffing and doctors to operate another hospital. How does a 300 bed hospital handle over 100,000 people? I have been at TV hospital many many times in 15 years. Some good and some very bad experiences in the ER waiting. I agree they need to open the Urgent care back up and have a doctor in triage look at you and decide if Urgent Care could take care of you. I go to Urgent Care and they call the ambulance to transfer me so I just go to the ER now. I have a major heart disease. What do we do when our family only drives a golf cart to visit us? Thank you

I think if I had major heart disease I would consider moving to Gainesville. Excellent Shands Hospital. U of Florida health care cutting edge. Cost of living in that area is low to moderate. Very nice college town about the same size as The Villages in population.

Shands rate 3 out of a 5 rating. Not that great

a middling 3 out of 5 looks good from here, TV is a 1 , the bottom 6%. I agree that if I had serious health issues, I'd be looking elsewhere

We don't need another Hospital we need the people who are able to go to urgent care to use them. There are more then enough in the area. The problem comes in with insurance so the ER gets used as a clinic instead of an ER. I rode an Ambulance on Long Island trust me the same BS. Your going to get me right in right, nope you'll wait your turn. Ah man that sucks. Why not go to the urgent care oh I don't have insurance or my insurance won't cover that!

We need people who promise not to get sick!

Complete physicals, prior to being 'allowed' to purchase a new house...may soon be coming. :D

The average bed to population ratio in the US is 280 beds to 100,000 population (2015 stats). There are other hospitals besides Villages Hospital so it looks like hospital beds are in the ballpark here.

I'm not saying that's a good ratio but we are not out of line with the country as a whole.

Are those stats referring to retirement aged population?

That'd be my #1 concern. Older people have more medical concerns, OR are at a greater risk for more medical concerns. You don't see a lot of 40-year-olds breaking hips, having heart attacks, strokes, emphasyma, shingles, back problems, gout, arthritis. These things happen more often to older people than younger.

Yes there are always exceptions, and yes I'm sure everyone knows a guy or had an aunt who lived to be 106 without ever seeing a doctor. That's not typical though, and everyone knows it. All things being equal, 300 beds might be great for the "average 100,000 people". But it might not be great for "100,000 mostly seniors."

I don't know if it is great or not, but it doesn't seem the same statistics can be equally applied.

This is incorrect. Shands is rated a 2.

From Medicare.gov:
HOSPITALS WITHIN 50 MILES OF THE VILLAGES
STARS - HOSPITAL CITY
1 -- THE VILLAGES REGIONAL HOSPITAL THE VILLAGES
2 -- LEESBURG REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER LEESBURG
3 -- ADVENTHEALTH WATERMAN TAVARES
2 -- OCALA REGIONAL MEDICAL CENTER OCALA
2 -- ADVENTHEALTH OCALA OCALA
4 -- SOUTH LAKE HOSPITAL CLERMONT
1 -- CITRUS MEMORIAL HOSPITAL INVERNESS
2 -- HEALTH CENTRAL HOSPITAL OCOEE
2 -- ADVENTHEALTH DELAND DELAND
2 -- ADVENTHEALTH FISH MEMORIAL ORANGE CITY
2 -- CENTRAL FLORIDA REGIONAL HOSPITAL SANFORD
3 -- ADVENTHEALTH ORLANDO ORLANDO

ADDITIONAL HOSPITALS
2 -- UF HEALTH SHANDS HOSPITAL GAINESVILLE
4 -- MAYO CLINIC JACKSONVILLE

NATIONAL DISTRIBUTION OF RATINGS
Overall Rating - Number (%)
5 stars -- 293 (6.41%)
4 stars -- 1,086 (23.75%)
3 stars -- 1,264 (27.64%)
2 stars -- 800 (17.49%)
1 star -- 282 (6.17%)
N/A -- 848 (18.54%)

The stats are for the overall population and the beds available in all the hospitals available to that population, not a single hospital. But even taking into account the age of the Villages population the Villages Hospital wouldn't be that far off from the national average.

But there are a lot more than 300 hospital beds in the Villages area. For example Leesburg has 329 beds and for a lot of Villages residents it is closer than The Villages Hospital is. So that's over 600 beds for the Villages/Leesburg are. The population of Leesburg is around 23,000 so it doesn't change the overall population numbers much. And there are other hospitals in the general area of the Villages like Promise. And the new ER and "bedless" hospital coming to Brownwood will relieve some of the load on Villages and Leesburg hospital. And if Central Florida Health does end up building a hospital in Brownwood on the land they bought for that purpose that will relieve those hospitals even more.

So compared to the country as a whole we have a better beds/population ratio than the country as a whole even taking into account the age of the Villages population.

If a second hospital is built maybe it ought to have a maternity ward to accommodate the seemingly growing "underage" population.

Good grief I hope they don't build a maternity ward. Don't forget if you're under 19, you can't live in The Villages. That means all those newborns have to live - somewhere else.