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February 11, 2006
On Deserved Congratulations
Congratulations are in order for Enloe Medical Center. Recently the Planning Commission has approved their Environmental Impact Report (EIR) for their hospital expansion. This is a major step towards a new facility that will be able to provide the kind of high-quality medical care that this region needs and deserves.
I am upset with a couple of the conditions of the approval, however. It seems that the city wants Enloe to build curbs , sidewalks, and gutters down 5th and 7th avenues. These streets, as almost anyone who's driven down them knows, are constantly flooded and mucky in the winter, ridden with pot holes, dark, and dangerous. This has been a condtion that's been going on for years and the city has chosen to do nothing about it. Now, seeing an opportunity arise, the city has passed the buck onto Enloe to fix. Enloe Medical Center may be one of the largest employers in the area but they are not a bottomless pit of money. Any cost incurred in doing road-work that the city should have done years ago will immediately be passed on to healthcare consumers, who are generally the ones least able to pay for it (the elderly, infirmed, poor, etc.). Road work needs to be funed by city taxes so that everyone from the rich on down can help pay for them.
Also, it's rumored that the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is considering suing Enloe Medical Center to challenge it's EIR, stating that the EIR does not go far enough in protecting the environment around the hospital. Their suit, in reality, has nothing to do with the enviornment but would rather be a burr under Enloe's saddle to provide SEIU leverage in certifying the challenged election. While this suit will probably be defeated, it will still cost Enloe money to fight it. Money that could be better spent on improved facilities for sick kids, old people, and the handicapped. I would hope that any cost incurred by Enloe for this suit will be counter-sued for as not to pass it on to the healthcare consumer.
It amazes me the politics that go around something as seemingly common-sense as a hospital attempting to expand to meet the needs of the community it serves. Everyone wants in, everyone wants a little piece of the pie. In the end it only costs money for the people who can least afford to pay for it, ie: the common tax payer.
Posted by at February 11, 2006 10:44 AM