Rural Dispatch: August 2023
Life in a Rural ‘Ambulance Desert’ Means Sometimes Help Isn’t on the Way
Taylor Sisk
No local hospital and anemic ambulance services mean residents in rural Pickens County, Alabama, are thrown into perilous situations when they have medical emergencies. It’s a kind of medical care roulette that has become a fact of life for rural Americans who live in ambulance deserts.
California Offers Lifeline to 17 Troubled Hospitals
Bernard J. Wolfson
California’s new lending program for distressed hospitals will provide Madera Community Hospital with interest-free loans of up to $52 million if it can agree on a viable reopening plan with Adventist Health. The state will offer an additional $240.5 million in interest-free loans to 16 other troubled hospitals.
Bankrupt California Hospital Receives Lifeline From Adventist, Report Says
Jonathan Weber
The Fresno Bee reports that Madera Community Hospital has reached an agreement with Adventist Health to take over the bankrupt facility and avoid liquidation.
Tribal Health Workers Aren’t Paid Like Their Peers. See Why Nevada Changed That.
Jazmin Orozco Rodriguez
Community health workers, who often help patients get to their appointments and pick up prescriptions for them, have increasingly been recognized as an integral part of treating chronic illnesses. But state-run Medicaid programs don’t always reimburse them equally, usually excluding those who work on tribal lands.
Community With High Medical Debt Questions Its Hospitals’ Charity Spending
Markian Hawryluk
Pueblo, Colorado, residents have higher-than-average medical debt, while the city’s two tax-exempt hospitals provide relatively low levels of charity care.
Repeating History: California County Plugs Budget Gap With Opioid Settlement Cash
Aneri Pattani
State attorneys general vowed that opioid settlement funds — unlike the tobacco settlement of the 1990s — would go toward tackling the underlying crisis. But in Mendocino County, officials have found a way to use some of its share to help fill a budget shortfall — a throwback to what agreement architects hoped to avoid.
In Wisconsin, Women’s Health Care Is Constricted by an 1849 Law. These Doctors Are Aghast.
Sarah Varney
From the front lines of Wisconsin’s abortion battle, obstetricians describe patients who cannot comprehend having to carry nonviable pregnancies. And only one pharmacist in town can be found who will fill prescriptions for abortion pills.