For more than five years, a dedicated group of residents and legislators have been trying to reverse the death spiral and disappearance of quality health care services and providers in Sullivan …
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For more than five years, a dedicated group of residents and legislators have been trying to reverse the death spiral and disappearance of quality health care services and providers in Sullivan County. For most of us, the goal has been to retain and increase professional medical services and personnel, and reverse the continuing race to the bottom of the county’s healthcare ranking and ratings.
Pledges to pursue this end were made by politicians and certain interest groups, yet year after year, health ranking and ratings continued to plummet, reducing available health care services and driving health care providers out of the county.
It was quite mystifying and frightening to watch the availability of these services and facilities continue to shrink, but slowly the reason for this dearth of health care venues/providers became clear. Instead of assigning owners and operators who would work to improve, retain and support quality health care, (e.g. Catskill Regional Hospital in Harris and Sullivan County Adult Care Center in Liberty), the county officials in charge of the SCACC brought in for-profit LLCs, (limited liability corporations) and even nonprofits, seemingly giving them a free hand to run these facilities as for-profit business ventures, plundering and stripping away all possible existing assets, and most importantly the access to good care.
It is a sad commentary on the state of Sullivan County health care that a 95-year-old resident, hospitalized twice after falling in her home, is probably safer being discharged back to her home alone than being placed in substandard rehab facilities that are now virtually all that Sullivan County has to offer. Where have all the doctors and medical services gone? They have succumbed to backroom vulture capitalism with deals that turn health care providers into for-profit business ventures. The pillaging of good health care available to Sullivan County residents must stop, and those responsible for these practices held accountable.
Star D. Hesse
Sullivan County resident, taxpayer and member of the Senior Legislative Action Committee
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