More than a year ago, Thomasville Regional Medical Center in Clarke County was shuttered after less than four years of operation. It was the latest casualty in the trend of financial difficulties for rural hospitals. Local leaders are now engaged in efforts to reopen the hospital and provide Clarke County with critical care.
“This ambulance is on an emergency run in Lowndes County, Alabama, near the Blackbelt region,” Capital Journal correspondent Randy Scott reports on the side of a highway. “Whatever the emergency is, it would take a road trip to get there, mainly due to a shortage of hospitals and medical facilities in this area equipped to handle emergencies. Some, such as the Thomasville Regional Medical Center, are closed.”
“Every time I pass this facility, I say, ‘What a waste!'” Thomasville State Representative Thomas Jackson says.
Rep. Jackson and others living in Thomasville were pleased to get a new hospital until it had to close a short time after opening its doors. Clarke County is again without accessible healthcare.
“It’s scary! If something happened to me, if I get in an accident, where do I go?” Rep. Jackson asks. “We do have ambulance service now…but sometimes it takes them 20 minutes to get to where you are.”
As a lawmaker, Rep. Jackson is aware of the conversation, locally and nationally, about the needed improvements to healthcare.
“I wish that people would stop playing politics and that financials would flow in from the national level, state level, and local level,” Rep. Jackson said. “And we can get partnerships with a financial unit or facility that would bring this hospital back to life.”
Rep. Jackson has had to travel 20 to 25 miles for medical care, and further if the situation required surgery. As these conversations continue, it leaves facilities like Thomasville Regional Medical Center in limbo.
Sometimes barriers to healthcare aren’t walls at all. They’re roads. With the closing of hospitals around Alabama, many people find themselves traveling to get the healthcare they need. Add that to closing hospitals, and it’s easy to see why many say this is a growing emergency for the state.
Thomasville Mayor Sheldon Day says getting the hospital reopened is a top priority.
“We didn’t just plan to build a knock-in-the-box emergency care center. We wanted it to be a facility that we could attract surgery and sub-specialty surgery to,” Mayor Day says. “Why not extend the [tax] credits, at least for a year or more, with some minor changes…so we can begin opening up the real conversation that needs to be had.”
Mayor Day says a frequent issue in those talks deals with finances and reimbursements for hospital visits and services to help keep its doors open. Those talks have generated optimism and bipartisanship, according to Mayor Day.
Not only does a facility like Thomasville Regional Medical Center help heal people, but it’s also an economic engine for the area, providing people with jobs and helping attract other businesses to the region.
“The reimbursement rate for medical CMS, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, is the lowest now. I do know that they’re working on a fix for that,” Mayor Day says.
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