“But who would want to live in Martin? It’s such a small town! There isn’t much to do here!”
That’s the kind of remark I hear every day. But we don’t realize how lucky we are to live and/or study here. Why?
Well, for one thing, we have a hospital in the city. If you get injured during a football game, you will not need to drive an hour to get treatment. If you have an allergic reaction after eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, your life could be saved.
A Jamestown, Tennessee resident may not have that chance and for good reason. The hospital in Jamestown closed its doors last June, forcing patients to go to the Cumberland Medical Center in Crossville, Tennessee, almost 45 minutes away.
And unfortunately, this is not an isolated case. In this area alone, 10 hospitals have disappeared since 2012 and the situation is not improving. Many hospitals are losing money because of insurance companies not paying out as much as they used to. Since most people seeking medical treatment cannot pay out of pocket, hospitals are mostly compensated by insurance.
With this growing trend, more hospitals could be forced to close down.
UTM actually utilizes a closed, rural hospital in Fayette County as the UTM Somerville satellite Center. The hospital closed in 2015 after struggling financially before being bought by UTM. While it is now being used to educate UTM students, Fayette County citizens are left without a medical center.
The situation is worrying because it generates many problems: several layoffs of nursing staff, people who can’t seek treatment because they don’t have a car to drive to the next hospital or cannot reach the hospital in time, and even difficulty in finding internships for nursing students.
What are the possible solutions to this situation? Professor Mary Radford, chair of the UTM Department of Nursing suggested several ideas.
For one, develop clinics in the absence of hospitals. Usually managed by a single physician or nurse practitioner, they can provide emergency and primary care and the patient could be stabilized before going to a bigger hospital.
Home care and mobile clinics could be developed as well. Daily medical assistance provided in the home by professional caregivers (like physicians and nurse practitioners) is very useful, especially for the elderly and isolated people. It could allow people to be taken care of in a better way.
The problem of closing hospitals is not only a Tennessean, or even American issue. The problem of medical access is the same in all countries.
I am a French nurse and I live in Orleans, recognized as a medical desert. For a flu, it is common to have to wait at least a week to have an appointment with a doctor. People tired of waiting have to turn to the often overloaded emergency rooms.
Unfortunately, there is not a magic solution on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, but we must continue to seek solutions to improve the situation.
