As a small-town reporter I get to go places most don’t. I sit politely and listen as the smart ones offer solutions and the dumb one offer excuses. You see, I am rarely the richest one in the room, sometimes I am the smartest and as I look around I often come to the conclusion I am the best looking.
With that said, I enjoyed going to the Delta Council annual meeting a week ago. I didn’t hear one excuse for the Delta’s healthcare problems. I did hear solutions. And I wasn’t the best looking person in the room.
Healthcare Help
One of the ideas broached in Cleveland last week was the need to work together as a region.
The idea is there is strength in numbers and also the fact that some people and some communities are more talented in select areas than other.
Greenwood, Cleveland and Ruleville appear to have joined forces and have gone out and hired a consultant who knows his stuff. Richard Cowart’s ideas, data and numbers can be found on Page One of this paper and it only cost you a dollar.
Folks, I have only been in Clarksdale four years but I have been back in Mississippi more than Fifteen. I grew up in the Golden Triangle and have watched it boom. The newspaper in Houston, Mississippi was part of the Tupelo hub that has transformed Northeast Mississippi and is a model for regional healthcare in this nation.
Clarksdale needs to make some friends in the healthcare industry in the Delta. Richard Cowart is smarter than me and repeatedly said playing alone in a highly competitive healthcare world is not the way to success.
Healthcare numbers
Did you know there are more than 120 fulltime jobs at the Clarksdale hospital? There about twice that many part-time jobs. That makes our hospital one of the biggest single employers in this town.
Did you know our hospital averages about 20 beds with patients in them?
Did you know there were around 700 babies a year born in the Clarksdale hospital in 2019. I’ve gotten to know the people and culture of this community over the past four years and I have to believe that is not a number that is going down.
Did you know we once had a labor and delivery suit that included two labor and delivery rooms, five regular labor rooms, two regular delivery rooms, a 23 bassinet newborn nursery and an intensive care nursery? Again I think we need to capitalize on something we do well around here!
Did you know Trilogy pitched the idea of a micro-hospital to this community three years ago. It was reported in your Clarksdale Press Register.
Three years ago our hospital was looking at $700,000 in roof repairs, a million dollars in heating and cooling repairs and a total repair bill of $2.1 million. The cost of demolition for the facility with most of these problems was estimated at $837,210.
Don’t people around here realize we don’t have three more years to figure this healthcare thing out?
Healthcare Helmsmen
So where is our hospital headed?
We’ve only been at this a little over a month and I still don’t think anyone in this county has the answer to that at this point. Or at least they aren’t talking about it.
I do hope the news will be good when it comes.
It’s obvious we have a need for doctors and nurses. What’s the plan to recruit those people?
It’s obvious our hospital has been neglected and needs computers, medical machines and qualified people to run them. Do we buy and then hire people to operate them or do we hire and ask their advice on what we need?
We also have a facility that was built in 1950 for a community of 50,000 people using 1950’s technology. We don’t need that physical plant today. Who can tell us how to build a new one and where it needs to go?
Clarksdale didn’t get into this situation overnight and they are estimating it will take 18-months to implement change.
Richard Cowart also said it is critical to think carefully about our next step. He also suggested a long-range healthcare plan that serves this community and supports our economy for years to come.
Yes, he obviously was one of the smartest guys in the room. I still think I am better looking.
Floyd Ingram is Editor of your Clarksdale Press Register. Call him at 662-627-2201 with your healthcare ideas. And tell him to comb his hair and lose 20-pounds.
