Delays in accessing treatment are a matter of life and death. Rural Californians rely on small hospitals to be the first line of defense in emergency medicine. Where they are not able to serve a patient fully, they are able to stabilize and arrange rapid transport with medical personnel accompanying the patient to the nearest trauma center.
This year, the community of Glenn County suffered the loss of its rural hospital and now must travel more than 30 miles for the closest hospital. Tragically, the hospital falls just outside of the safety net distance that would have provided a lifeline to the struggling hospital. Here in Kern County, we have seen funding cuts threaten facilities like Kern Valley Hospital and Adventist Health Tehachapi.
The collapse of the rural hospital network is not the result of a singular policy but of a myriad of safety net programs that have failed to adequately ensure that Americans have access to quality, affordable, and emergent medical intervention…