Carrollton reasserts need to open emergency room
CARROLLTON, Ala. (WCBI) – In the past 13 months, two people have died in front of Carrollton City Hall.
“Back on July 8, we had a citizen come in, he was coming from Pickensville. He had a family member in the car,” Carrollton Mayor Mickey Walker said. “They pulled up at city hall and got our clerk, just hysterical and crying that they were having a heart attack or a stroke or something.”
Mayor Mickey Walker said the man died because there was nowhere within a reasonable distance for him to get treatment.
After this tragedy, Mayor Walker is reasserting the need to open back up in Pickens County.
“How many times is this going to happen before they can give us this variance to get the emergency room open,” Walker said.
In rural areas, Critical Access Hospitals are allowed more funding from Medicare and Medicaid.
No one will deny that Pickens County is a rural area, but the devil is in the details.
To qualify for full funding, the location of that Critical Access Hospital must be 35 miles or more from the nearest hospital.
The now-vacant Pickens County Medical Center is in Carrollton.
Carrollton is 37 miles away from DCH Regional Medical Center in Tuscaloosa, but it is 32 miles from Baptist Memorial Hospital Golden Triangle in Columbus.
“People are dying because of three miles,” Walker said. “If we could get these 35 miles to accommodate us, our emergency room would open back up, and we could start saving people. This is absolutely ridiculous. They are sending all this money over to Ukraine, fighting a war over there, and we’re fighting a war here and we can’t get any help.”
Walker says a waiver from Medicare could effectively make those 3 miles disappear, but that will have to come from Washington.
They are working through state lawmakers to get the issue in front of the right people in the agency.
“Three miles is what we’re talking about, and we will have this emergency room open,” Walker said. “We’re not trying to open up the hospital, do I think that would work? I really don’t. But, the emergency room will absolutely work. I don’t care where you’re at, a hospital in our shape, and not sitting there being closed is a complete disaster of our system. There is no way that the hospital should be sitting there and an emergency room not open with all the funding that’s being run around and wasted elsewhere.”
Mayor Walker says they are still exploring renovation options for the hospital even though it’s closed.
That way, if the opportunity presents itself, they can get the E.R. reopened quickly.
