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Having a community hospital, owned by a health care district, has a unique benefit to rural counties like San Benito. We should never give up that benefit or risk losing it because doing so would dramatically change San Benito County. Selling to a corporate entity such as Insight risks them closing Hazel Hawkins Hospital in the future, going bankrupt themselves, or otherwise simply not providing the same services. As a public entity, we are in control of Hazel Hawkins Hospital. Once we sell it, we have lost control. The board Insight speaks of will not have any say in the actual control of the hospital.
Counties in California are charged with being the health care provider of last resort to its residents. When officials come across a homeless person in medical distress, that person today is taken to Hazel Hawkins Hospital and receives treatment. When law enforcement makes an arrest and the detainee or officer claims an injury, they are taken to Hazel Hawkins Hospital first for medical clearance before going to the jail. When someone in our jail needs medical attention, they are taken to Hazel Hawkins Hospital. When any student in our schools is suicidal or exhibiting some other mental distress, they are taken to Hazel Hawkins Hospital.
All of this paid for by the San Benito Health Care District, funded by property taxes and profits from those who pay for services by provided Hazel Hawkins Hospital. The County of San Benito, a separate jurisdiction, does not pay for the services mentioned above. It’s obligations of being the health care provider of last resort are being met by the San Benito Health Care District.
If we sell Hazel Hawkins Hospital and then for whatever reason it goes away in the future, the County of San Benito is still on the hook for being the health care provider of last resort. On the first day of the closure of the hospital, the County would have to start transporting patients to either Santa Clara or Monterey counties. In the case of an arrestee, now you have a law enforcement transporting the patient on our crowed roads, an hour there and an hour back, plus waiting time at the out-of-county hospital. The overtime costs will be huge and the loss of having that law enforcement officer, their vehicle, their weapons, not available here puts us at a huge risk should a need arise. This risk is magnified if the nearest hospitals are too busy to handle our patients; then we are transporting to San Jose or beyond.
Like dealing with law enforcement’s patients, transporting the poor and indigent, students, and others that County has an obligation to serve, will become an incredibly costly and expensive endeavor, now to be borne by the County that was not previously having to pay for it.
As it is today, the County of San Benito as an entity, only gets 11 cents of every property tax dollar. From that 11 cents it pays for everything needed to run all the departments of the county: Sheriff, jail, fire, public health, elections, recorder, auditor, tax collector, roads, building, so on and so forth. All of these departments will suffer much more than they do today if the County has to get into the transportation business for its patients.
It would be a different story if we had more than one hospital in San Benito County, but as a community of 70,000, that’s just not going to happen.
The post COMMUNITY OPINION: What the risk of voting yes on Measure X and selling Hazel Hawkins Hospital to Insight really is appeared first on BenitoLink.