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Our Hospital Is Not Failing Us, the Government Is

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Dear Source:
The hospital is dead—it is not! The patients are all dead—they are not!
The headlines inflame –they do not inform!
Let us look at what is reported. No one had the wrong leg cut off, No one died in the waiting room! etc., etc. Yes some unacceptable things happened. And we will and must prevent them from happening again. Our Hospital has seen and treated thousands of patients in the years this report covers. Yes, thousands and these folks are here with us today because of their good treatment, at JLS. Like every hospital, is in really a group of separate units, Much like a ship with numerous containers on board. Some of these containers have things go wrong from time to time and when they do informed people do not condemn the whole ship. The Hospital is the ship. In fact in the CMS report several units got great ratings, the Dialysis, unit, for example, received the highest rating that can be given, 5 stars and it is in the top ten percent in the nation. When you read the report it becomes clear that most of the incidents are a function of lack of money, Why does our hospital lack proper funding? Because St Thomas does not adequately pay for the care that St. Croix needs. Did you know that the Hospital is way down the priority list on the budget for funding. Are you kidding, Fish and wildlife or parks and Rec are more important. Cutting these other departments is political, cutting the Hospital is immoral. Does St. Thomas pay for the care they need, they certainly do. Now a few of our Senators have recently claimed they sent our hospital a few million dollars, Thank you very much but as they know this money was far below what was required and it took so long getting here that it did not come near covering our hospital’s bills. I know St. Thomas is upset that the poor people live here and they are now expected to pay for them. Sorry we can’t be as affluent as you over there but I remember St. Croix sending huge amounts of money to you for years and years from Hess {Hovensa} and the Run Rebates. Where is our money when we need it? Perhaps we should send our “can’t pay people’ over to your hospital.
Dear Reader, we wish no harm to our sister Island and we hope they wish none to us, but things some time seem odd. This CMS report has been kicking around for some time now and the very week that a decision is being made about which Island will get the new Medical Facility, this Report comes up and ‘Decertification“ is issued. Naturally this puts us in a bad light for getting the Bid and STT comes out ahead. I’m sure our sister island would never do a thing like this, please say this is so. In any event the CMS report criticizes the lack of a full hospital board here, Remember it is the Administration that places names for the board to the Senate, Why did STT not fill our board? Where were our senators who could have forced or screamed about this deficiency that is in the CMS report. Also where is the ST. Thomas CMS report. Let us compare their failings to ours.
Across to board the report, with the unusual few bad experiences that we expect will not happen again for they were unfortunate isolated events, let’s be clear the Federal Government {CMS} states that the hospital is not adequately funded, so to help this we are cutting off your funding. “The beatings will continue till morale improves” It’s stupid. Keep the payments up, get proper budget funding and make the improvements so our lives may go back to normal. Our hospital continues to serve us and will treat our wounds when they occur.
Bob White, St. Croix

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