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February 07, 2006
On Enloe Expansion
I have to applaud Enloe Medical Center in it's attempts to be a good neighbor to the people living around the hospital while it's trying to expand. Enloe has held a number of meetings and listened to hundreds of concerns of community members both for and against the expansion. During the most recent meeting a number of conditions were set forth by the neighbors. The conditions were as follows:
Improve street infrastructure as the project is built.
Complete installations to slow down traffic within five years.
Add "liner buildings" to the parking structure, consisting of stores and offices.
Move the helicopter base to the airport and allow hospital landings only for "true golden-hour emergencies."
Give the association a vote on designing the park and liner buildings.
Involve the association formally in planning ways to comprehensively reduce the need for parking around Enloe.
Make the Enloe Conference Center available for community functions.
Limit future hospital expansion to the area immediately surrounding the present hospital site.
Make one member of the hospital board of trustees a representative of the neighborhood.
I must say that none of these are over the top and should be considered if Enloe wants to retain it's good neighbor image. Save one. The proposal that Enloe move it's Flightcare Helicopter away from the hospital is insane. The very idea that it would be considered by Enloe should be insulting to anyone who ever consideres themselves at risk of having an emergency (ie everyone). The stipulation is that the helicopter could use the roof in a true "golden hour" emergency, in other words the ones where time is of the essence.
This kind of proviso is dangerous in so many ways. While Flightcare nurses and paramedics are of the highest caliber on staff in the Emergency Services Department they neither have the resources or the authority to make that kind of decison, that's for a physician to decide. Often disease and injury are sneaky, a patient may look fine and actually have much more damage than can be detected without MRI, Cat Scans (CT), extensive labs, and radiology. By landing at the airport these patients' care is delayed and lives are at risk. If just one patient has a less favorable outcome due to a delay in patient care that could have been prevented by having the helicopter on the roof then that is one too many. How can the neighbors of Enloe put lives at jeapordy?
Enloe has a responsibility to be a good neighbor to the residents that live around the hospital. It has a greater responsibility to the communities it serves to provide the highest quality healthcare it can and do all it can to improve patient's outcomes. Allowing the helicopter to move away from the hospital Enloe would be putting patient lives at risk, and that breaches the unwritten contract it holds with the communities it serves.
Posted by at February 7, 2006 04:28 PM