High costs of treating the uninsured blamed; city tries to save facility.

(Wednesday January 10. 2007)

     "The news that Terrell's only general-care hospital is set to close its doors within sixty days has sent city officials and at least one doctor scrambling to treat what could be a major injury to the city of 15,500.
      "She (Ms. Countryman) and the hospital's chief executive officer, Ken Pittman said finances broke even in 2005, but last year there was a two million dollar loss. About thirty percent of what has been billed to patients hasn't been paid, they said."
     "With that level of unpaid bills, there is no hospital in the country, if they didn't have some level of assistance that would be successful in the long run."

     What a sad situation this is becoming. This is going on all over the country and there does not seem to be any relief in sight. The blame is being placed on the uninsured, but who exactly are these people?

     Allow me to quote a few passages from my book (Chapter Eight, pages 137 - 138).
     "Hospitals today are under staffed because of lack of funding. For the staff members who have chosen to stay it has become nothing short of a nightmare. Long hours of work and then to be under paid for the valiant efforts is a disaster waiting to happen.
     Why you might ask is this even happening? In part this is happening everywhere around the country because of the over influx of illegal immigrants.
     The illegal immigrants flock around our hospitals in record numbers with virtually no money to pay for the many services that they are in desperate need of.
     In order to even perform the simple task of communication, many hospitals have had to include interpreters to their already stressed payroll in order to accommodate.
     Where does it say that illegal immigrants are entitled to over run our country and we are just supposed to look the other way, not to see what is going on and accept their plight?
     Is it not rather obvious that they are arriving here in record numbers because their own country has turned a deaf ear to them? Is their own country incapable of providing employment? Is their own country incapable of providing decent livable wages for them to take care of their own families?
     Is their own country incapable of providing an infrastructure that includes an educational system for its young citizens?
     This may be so, but why then is it my inherited problem to come up with a viable solution? This country as a whole just cannot continue on this path with open arms and provide for everyone and anyone all of the time upon demand."