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Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Grady Hospital: Save or close?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Consider this a sampling of the Internet community. The issue is Grady Memorial Hospital in downtown Atlanta, a facility in perpetual crisis. In the pre-Medicaid world, it was in crisis. In the pre-Medicare world, it was. And before the existence of PeachCare, a program that provides top-drawer insurance coverage to children in families with incomes of up to $48,000 a year, it was in crisis.
Nowadays most everybody elderly or poor, except for illegals, single men and some who choose not to buy insurance, have a government funding stream attached to them. And yet, Grady still can’t make available revenues cover its costs.
State Sen. Eric Johnson (R-Savannah), the top-ranking member of the Georgia State Senate, caused a stir among the “save Grady” advocates Tuesday by suggesting that Grady’s closing would not be the disaster that others are asserting. “Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if it did go under,” he said at the Capitol. “Maybe the phoenix that would rise in its place would be better than the hospital that’s there now.”
Johnson said he was just “thinking out loud,” but he believes the marketplace will fill the void.
Johnson’s observations are worth considering. I’ve no doubt that with the shootings, stabbings and wrecks in Grady’s coverage area, a real need does exist for its trauma center. That center could be jointly owned, and perhaps staffed, by other hospitals without Level 1 units. Grady’s trauma center would be a central location where patients could be stabilized and then transported to the hospital of their choice. If they wished to remain at a dramatically downsized Grady, they could. The same model would apply to its burn center.
Most of the rest of Grady could become a pure charity hospital and clinic for preventive care and for the treatment of minor ailments.
Some audience sampling questions, though. How closely are you following the Grady story? How important is its “survival” in something akin to the model that exists now? Would you pay $1 a month to “save” Grady? Is Grady the state’s problem? And finally, what do you believe Grady’s problem or problems to be?
