NC Mayor Walks to DC for Rural Hospitals

"People are dying, and if you have 283 hospitals close you are going to have something equivalent to 9/11 happening every year… all over this country, and it is completely and totally unacceptable," says Belhaven, NC, Mayor Adam O'Neal.

Belhaven, NC Mayor Adam O'Neal is on the road again.

For the second time in two years, O'Neal and civil rights veteran Bob Zellner are marching to Washington, DC to draw attention to the plight of the nation's rural hospitals.

On Monday, the two men and 20 supporters representing 11 states, carrying an empty wooden coffin with "Save our Hospitals" written on the side, departed coastal Belhaven (pop. 1,687) on a two-week, 283-mile march to the nation's capital. Each mile of the trek represents one of the 283 rural hospital that could close because of financial stress. The march is scheduled to end on June 15 on the steps of the Capitol.

HealthLeaders Media caught up with the trekkers on the second day of their journey, just north of Plymouth, NC.

"It is a national crisis when you have 283 hospitals close," O'Neal says. "Can you imagine 283 urban hospitals closing? Do you think there would be an outcry? Well, let me tell you these rural hospitals are more important than the urban hospitals because these rural hospitals serve a radius of maybe 100 miles. In a city if a hospital closes, most times there are two or three other ones in town."

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O'Neal, a Republican, acknowledges that the Republican-led North Carolina legislature and Republican Gov. Pat McCrory, are responsible for much of the misery in Belhaven because they have refused to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.

"The Medicaid expansion was supposed to fill that gap," O'Neal says. "When you don't accept Medicaid expansion there is nothing to bridge that gap for the cost of indigent care and those falling revenues. The states that aren't accepting Medicaid, like my state of North Carolina, need to fill the gap with some other money. They don't need to let hospitals close."

"The ACA is the law now. That's the way it is. I understand that they have some concerns with it, but they need to go to Washington and deal with it there."

O'Neal notes that 62 million Americans live in rural areas, which means that the federal government must find money to keep rural hospitals afloat. He has a solution.

"This year we are going to give away $27.2 billion to other countries in foreign aid. How 'bout we keep $300 million of that for these hospitals," he says. "One million dollars per hospital is a lot of money for these small rural hospitals. Let's give away $26.9 billion and keep our rural hospitals open. That's a good idea!"

Not Their First Walk
In 2014, O'Neal and Zellner walked a more direct route of 273 miles to Washington to protest the closure of the Belhaven's Vidant Pungo Hospital, one of the nation's first designated critical access hospitals. Now, Belhaven residents have to drive about one hour to Greenville, 49 miles away, to access emergency services. Vidant Health is building a $4.2 million, 12,000-square-foot "multispecialty center" to replace the hospital, but it won't include an emergency room. O'Neal says that's not good enough, and the town is trying to wrest control of the old hospital from Vidant. 

Since Vidant Pungo shuttered last year, O'Neal says there have been two avoidable deaths, including Portia Gibbs, 48. The mother of two suffered a heart attack and died waiting for a helicopter.

"Portia Gibbs spent the last hour of her life in a high school parking lot waiting for a helicopter. She died as it landed," O'Neal says. "Before, when our hospital was open, she would have been in an emergency room physician's hands within 25 minutes."

"People are dying, and if you have 283 hospitals close you are going to have something equivalent to 9/11 happening every year to our children, our parents, and friends all over this country and it is completely and totally unacceptable."

It's not just the loss of healthcare services. O'Neal says closing rural hospitals is a huge economic blow to small towns. Hospitals are often the largest employers in their communities, and healthcare jobs are often the highest paying. It also makes it difficult to attract new businesses and residents to a town that has no hospital.  

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O'Neal says last year's trek created a lot of media attention for Belhaven, and he's hoping this year's walk will increase public awareness of the plight of rural hospitals across the nation and maybe prompt elected officials to stop the partisan bickering and work toward a solution.

"Back in the 1940s this country saw the need for rural hospitals and they created the Hill-Burton Act. The first Hill-Burton hospital in the U.S. opened in Belhaven in 1947 and now that hospital is closed. That is a sign of how our priorities have gotten screwed up," O'Neal says. "When these hospitals close, it's not just Democrats or Republicans or Libertarians or Independents or blacks or whites or Latinos, it's everybody dies. This is something that has to go beyond politics."

"I understand the ACA is very controversial, but President Obama, the Congress, the states and governors have to work together. They can't let 283 hospitals close while they fuss and fight."