Just three days after the state defers a decision to move medical services from Kenneth Hall Regional Hospital, the Southern Illinois Healthcare Foundation is taking a scalpel to Level II Trauma service in East St. Louis, effective February 1.
The reasons – “due to the high losses incurred by providing this service, over 1.5 million annually and a medical manpower shortage of qualified physicians,” according to a statement released January 18. “We are concerned and disappointed by the repetitive cycle of questions being asked by the Planning Board, which has resulted in deferral of action on the Certificate of Need.”
Last week, the Illinois Health Planning Facilities Board delayed its decision on whether to approve moving medical services from Kenneth Hall to Touchette Hospital in Centreville until April 8. Nearly 1,000 East St. Louis residents and concerned citizens attended the meeting to protest the proposal.
“By April 2008, it will have been one year since the [Certificate of Need] process was initiated and KHRH will have lost well over 3 million dollars during that time frame,” SIHF said.
While hospital operators point to their fiscal concerns, a nationally-known union leader in town recently said what is happening in East St. Louis as indicative of a larger issue.
“The whole healthcare system is in the intensive care unit itself and the federal government refuses to resuscitate it. It is an issue that is paramount for poor people in America this election,” said Henry Nicholas, president of the National Union of Hospital and Health Care Employees. Nicholas is also executive vice president of the national Coalition of Black Trade Unionists and vice president of AFSCME.
Nicholas advises hospital workers to send a message at the polls.
“They have to go out and organize the community and then they have to send a message and vote in large numbers on February 5,” Nicholas said.
For 31,000 residents and an estimated 250,000 people who travel daily through East St. Louis by highway, rail or waterway or spend time on the east side for entertainment, not having a full-service hospital in East St. Louis may be a disaster waiting to happen.
“We have several railroads that run through our town. To go to a hospital in the Centreville area, you run the risk into a situation that is common in our area – being stopped by a train. For most people, it happens at least once a week. They can result in 20-minute waits – which will be fatalities,” said Rocco Goins, emergency services and disaster agency coordinator for East St. Louis. “In emergency services, we all know that response times are critical – in particular, the first 10 minutes, especially the first five minutes. When you talk about doing something that will automatically double the time or add five or 10 minutes, you increase the likelihood of fatalities exponentially.”
Goins said what will be left at Kenneth Hall next month will be a standard emergency room.
“Typically what that does—they would be able to get someone ready to go to another facility,” Goins described.
Another major concern is the impact of any major natural disaster, such as fire, flood, tornado or earthquake.
“People are in danger, and they have been for some time,” Goins said. “You’re not only putting them at risk, you are putting them doubly at risk because the people who respond to them are also at risk.”