Shrinking Medical Options

As a nurse, I love (sic) to hear how America has the best medical care available of any country. So let me correct this statement for you. We have the best medical care available to those who can afford it and live in the right areas or have the luxury of being able to travel long distances to access that care.

The distance issue is becoming an increasingly alarming issue. For years, hospitals have been closing at a rate of 30 hospitals per year across the US. At first glance, this number doesn’t sound horrible. However, then we have to dive deeper into those numbers.

According to the American Hospital Association (AHA), as of 2016, there were only 5534 hospitals operating in the US. Of those,

209 are federal government hospitals.

397 are non-federal psychiatric hospitals.

88 are counted as “other” hospitals.

All those can be removed from the total serving communities, bringing the number down to 4840. Of that number, only 1825 are rural hospitals. Yet rural hospitals and those in low income areas are the ones closing at the fastest rate.

As stated, these numbers are from 2016, so the number of active facilities are even lower as of this time.

Even worse? Included in that 4840 number are rehabilitation and chronic care hospitals. There are no accurate numbers available, so there is no way of knowing how many of the 4840 are not acute care facilities. I have worked at various…