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Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2009 > August > 30 > Entry
Editorial: Some Greene patients could be hurting
Kettering Health Network is significantly changing the hospital landscape in Greene County.
Though Beavercreek residents may be happy, Kettering Health Network owes patients in eastern Greene — who will have to drive farther in emergencies and to give birth — better answers about who’s looking out for them.
The network — which owns Greene Memorial Hospital in Xenia — could start by getting its stories straight.
At first, Greene Memorial President Greg Henderson said about half of the 1,000-plus workers associated with his hospital would relocate in 2012 to a new $135 million hospital campus planned for Beavercreek. Then Frank Perez, Kettering Health Network president and CEO, insisted 500 of the 572 people who are employed at the Xenia hospital would stay and argued that few of the 500 others jobs connected to the hospital would move.
Mr. Perez also said initially that an emergency room would stay in Xenia, while surgical services would move.
After concerns were raised about whether Greene Memorial could maintain its “level III” certification as a trauma center without full access to surgical services, Kettering spokesman Kevin Lavoie acknowledged that emergency services in Greene County “most likely” would be in Beavercreek.
Mr. Lavoie also now says the location of surgery services is “not decided” and declined to elaborate, saying that the hospital is playing its cards close to the vest to keep its competition guessing.
“They cannot definitively tell me what they are going to do with Greene Memorial Hospital,” Xenia City Council President Dennis Propes said.
Kettering Health Network must do better. What the network decides to do will have a huge impact on county residents who aren’t clustered in Beavercreek.
Consider the emergency room. Greene County’s trauma center is one of just three highly rated emergency rooms in the Dayton area that’s able to handle serious injuries and illnesses. It is centrally located in Greene County, providing easy access to its middle and eastern areas.
If, down the road, the nearest option for that kind of care is in Beavercreek, a trip to the hospital in an emergency — when minutes count — just got longer.
Beavercreek is the wealthier part of Greene County. The nonprofit Kettering network’s move, in part, is being driven by a chase for money with competitor Premier Health Partners, which just turned a health care center near the Montgomery-Greene County line off I-675 at Wilmington Pike into Miami Valley Hospital South.
It’s fair to ask if access to care for less well-off people and the whole of Greene County is being sacrificed in this hospital war.
A Beavercreek hospital also was not part of the deal many county voters signed on for last year when they passed a half-mill levy that raises $1.5 million annually. They were told the money — admittedly a tiny public subsidy in a hospital’s overall operation — was necessary to keep existing services at Greene Memorial Hospital.
Had voters known that Kettering was quietly inking a $14 million deal for land to build a hospital in Beavercreek just days before the vote, passing the levy might not have been so easy. (Fifty-eight percent of voters said yes.) The levy language was specific to Greene Memorial Hospital, with no mention of relocating any services.
Kettering’s argument that voters should have understood that it was fair game to offer key health care services elsewhere, as long as they remained in the county, is minimizing the public pitch that was made.
Based on the information he has, Mr. Propes believes Kettering’s story on jobs in Xenia doesn’t give the full picture. Greene Memorial may still employ 500 people in 2012, but if it is largely a nursing home and long-term care facility, the city still stands to see a major loss of revenue because the jobs will be lower paying, he said.
If major services like obstetrics — which is no longer being offered at Greene Memorial — and surgery move to Beavercreek, many medical operations that support those functions, but may not be physically located at the hospital, likely will move, too. The city estimates it could lose 500 workers, costing a half-million dollars in revenue annually.
Far too much spinning is going on. Kettering needs to be more forthright — and attentive to people who are wondering why their future emergency isn’t a concern.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Health Care, Scott Elliott, Suburban Communities
Comments
By Concerned in Jamestown
August 30, 2009 8:01 PM | Link to this
Here’s another thing to remember as decisions are being made about relocating the E/R to Beavercreek. Small farming communities rely on volunteer fire departments to respond in E/R situations. When I have had to call 911 in the past it usually takes 15-20 minutes for the team to make it to my house and I live just outside of town. If Kettering moves the E/R trauma center to Beavercreek that will add another 15-20 minutes. Someone with a critical injury or a heart attack/stroke victim could have dire consequences for this kind of time delay.By Beavers
August 30, 2009 8:34 PM | Link to this
The worst thing about the old location for Greene County is all of the Medicaid patients that frequented the hospital. They needed to get as close to the insured as possible to survive. If you could move far enough that the uninsured would not visit then you could make some decent money operating a hospital. Capitalism baby, capitalism.