I’ve devoted my professional career to hospitals and healthcare, but like anyone else, I’ve also had plenty of personal experiences with hospitals. They’ve been times of immense relief, of deep sadness and, on four blessed occasions, utter joy.
Most of those occasions have been times of great transitions. Hospitals are the backdrop for our life-changing moments.
Imagine your own personal hospital stories multiplied for millions of individuals and families all across our state. Each day, New Jersey’s hospitals welcome 300 new babies into our world, perform 800 life-enhancing surgeries and care for 9,000 people who rush to the Emergency Room.
The thought of losing those services is simply unimaginable to me.
Unfortunately, a growing number of New Jersey communities have experienced the loss of their local hospitals. In the last 15 years, 22 New Jersey hospitals have closed their doors – six in the last 18 months alone. Two more have announced plans to close in the coming weeks. Half of the remaining hospitals are losing money.
Patients will travel further and wait longer.
Obviously, it’s a very difficult time for hospitals in New Jersey. Years of government underfunding are catching up with them. New Jersey hospitals lose money each time they serve a patient on Medicaid, Medicare or charity care. They have for years. And those losses will grow even deeper under Gov. Corzine’s plan to cut $143 million in charity care funding for the state’s 1.3 million uninsured residents. Those cuts will hasten the closure of many more of our hospitals. More parents, more families, more individuals without health insurance will learn what it’s like to travel further and wait longer for the healthcare they need.
I think some of our policymakers take hospitals for granted. It seems like we’re programmed to underappreciate what we’ve got, only to finally recognize its full importance when it’s lost to us forever. And so it is with hospitals. We won’t realize what we’ve lost until it’s far, far too late and we’re left with a healthcare system that’s been decimated by financial neglect.
There’s still about a month left in this budget process to correct this looming mistake. Hospital advocates across the state have been joined by groups like AARP and the Medical Society of New Jersey in the effort to restore charity care funding. We invite you to join us too by logging on to www.savenjhospitals.com. The site in-cludes much more information about New Jersey’s hospital crisis and allows you to share your concerns with Gov. Corzine and our state legislators.
A day without hospitals? For me and my loved ones, that’s simply unimaginable.