The real outrage is that if you live on the South Shore, your chances of getting to a level-one trauma center depend on how well traffic is flowing on the Southeast Expressway. In a region that spends more per-capita on medical expenses than just about anywhere else on earth, there seems to be no level-one trauma facility on the South Shore.
Apparently ambulance drivers on the South Shore have not planned any alternate routes in case the Southeast Expressway is jammed (which only happens about 5 days a week). They just turn around and go someplace else. And not only that, the AG has okayed the closing (after one more year) of the only emergency room in Quincy. Because getting people quickly to life-saving emergency help–while more important than hippie protesters– is less important than profits.
The above should have been obvious to any public servant who really wanted to serve the public. To craven pols like Marty Walsh and Coleen Garry, their only reaction seems to be “You know what this story is missing? My face on TV!”
The lack of emergency rooms on the South Shore sounds like a problem, but is it a problem for which some organ of government has responsibility?
For example, should Norfolk County be siting hospitals?
Perhaps some organ of government has responsibility for addressing the five mile gridlock that occurs on I-93 north and south of the city every work day, and has done so for the forty years I’ve lived in Boston. Perhaps some bright government official might figure out that the Big Dig made it worse, not better.
Perhaps it’s time to focus on the problem (too many automobiles), rather than jumping through yet more hoops to circumvent it.
The problem isn’t that we have too few emergency rooms on the South Shore, the problem is that nobody can get to ANYPLACE on the South Shore during drivetime.
that too. But during national disasters, for example, a lack of emergency rooms — and emergency response personnel — would seem to be, uh, problematic. Subways and commuter rails run less frequently when on national disaster schedules.
This is what government is for: to have police, fire, and emergency services (like hospitals) waiting around until we have unexpected crises. It’s wrong to close all these hospitals for the sake of profit.
There are going to be people with strokes who will need attention FAST, not to mention numerous other medical cases.
We should have the government building these hospitals and staffing them.
I suspect that an examination of an actual disaster plan might be instructive, hopefully including priorities identified by the planners. While I agree that lack of emergency rooms is probably on the plan, I suspect that that is just one aspect of many.
This exercise would be challenging for Cape Cod residents, since there is no nuclear emergency evacuation plan for Cape Cod. Even though the Pilgrim operating license has been extended to 2032, even though most of the Cape lies in the shadow of an airborne plume, and even though the hurricane evacuation plan routes traffic directly INTO the hazard zone during a nuclear emergency at Pilgrim, the various agencies still have no plan. We can speculate about why.
Our brethren at bluehampshire were unimpressed with the Seabrook evacuation plan in 2011. Among other things, it covers only a ten mile radius — a much larger region was evacuated during the Fukushima disaster. The Seabrook “plan” actually changes with the wind, and assumes (!) that residents will wait for orders for authorities before evacuating. That did not happen at TMI.
If we’re going to discuss disaster planning (and we should), then I suggest that traffic is very high on the list.
It was a mess while it was happening, but my own experience driving through Boston is on balance better since. I’m especially glad that the infamous Central Artery merge was eliminated. Cars will always be with us, and in all likelihood will increase in number, regardless of how cheap and convenient we make mass transit, so we need to accommodate both.
Traffic planners predicted, when the Big Dig was being designed, that improving traffic flow through the city would increase traffic on I-93 north and south of Boston. That was the reason why Massachusetts was forced to agree to “mitigation” measures — measures that the state has steadfastly dragged its feet on since then.
You may quibble all you like, but the predicted traffic jams on I-93 between Wilmington and Boston and on the Southeast Expressway south of the city have blossomed as predicted.
It is precisely your perception that “driving through Boston is on balance better since” that creates the problem. That problem will only get worse, and improving mass transit is the only approach that will solve it.
From Commonwealth Magazine:
and
for Governor, so I discount most of his political comments by 50% but I do agree that Coakley and the state’s health care establishment has not held Steward accountable. Of course that has been true across the state for years, allowing for the shuttering of hospitals when a re-purposing of them to keep open their ERs and some other functions might have been a better policy.
…contained in your last sentence.
The issue is that the relevant agencies allowed Steward to ignore its contractual obligations.
Money quote from the Commonwealth article:
Rank opportunism knows no party affiliation.
agreed. And Koch is a Democrat.