GREENWOOD – With Greenwood Leflore Hospital on life support, city and county leaders worry how it’s going to affect the community… but it some ways it already has.
With the help of our news partners at The Taxpayer’s Channel,
The Delta News shows one of the first signs of fallout from the hospital’s dire condition.
The manager for Med Stat Ambulance tells the Leflore County Board of Supervisors his company can’t afford to renew it’s lease for a county-owned building that expires at the end of February.
“There’s just not enough volume with the hospital trimmin’ down the way it has for us to justify being in the building,” said Eric Sprayberry of MedStat Ambulance.
It’s perhaps the first of what experts say are many signs to come for the Greenwood economy…. companies downsizing or even leaving…. as Greenwood Leflore Hospital remains on life support.
As the hospital shed businesses to stay afloat, businesses that depended on the hospital took a huge hit to their bottom line.
“It’s just not enough. we went from an average of 250 calls a month when the hospital when the hospital was at its biggest and going strong, to 6 to 7 a month and that’s a pretty drastic change,” said Sprayberry.
A change that will see MedStat pulling back but not closing.
“we’re not leaving. we’re still gonna provide service from our mechanic shop on Carrollton Ave,” he said.
Mississippi’s state health officer recently revealed the state has many, many more Greenwood Leflore Hospitals out there. “It’s estimated that 38 of our hospitals have our rural hospitals statewide are in danger of either immediate closure or closure and the near term,” explained Dr. Daniel Edney.
That’s 54% of such hospitals in Mississippi.
Something that seems to have already begun to affect the ambulance business. “The calls that we’re doing are longer, more long distance transport so the guy in the ambulance is in there longer and doing less calls. so some of the guys are on the road 20 hours a day,” said Sprayberry.
And as those drivers find fewer hospitals to go to… they… and we… could run into a huge, life-threatening traffic jam. “One of the Grenada ambulances took a transfer to university in Jackson. they got there and there’s 16 ambulances in line waiting to unload and the nurses told him get ready to camp out you’re looking at 22 hours before we can take your patient…” he said.
Sprayberry’s advice: ” so… don’t get sick… stay well.”
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