Ligana5

Lariria

@Ligana5

  • She/Her They/Them Fae/faer

Commie non-binary trans woman.

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Ligana5
@Ligana5
ann-arcana
@ann-arcana
pervocracy
@pervocracy

This is a map of my region of Massachusetts. The purple dots are hospitals. The yellow dot is my house. The red X represents Nashoba Valley Medical Center, which closes today.

The remedies offered by the state are:

  1. They will station ambulances at the old ER for another week, in case someone comes there who didn't get the news.
  2. They will offer slightly cheaper urgent care in the area until October 1st.
  3. just don't get sick lol? 🤪

This hospital, as well as Carney Hospital in Dorchester, is closing because Ralph de La Torre (and a few other Steward executives) was not satisfied with merely being so rich he never had any unmet needs, he somehow needed to be richer than that. And he was willing to kill to do it.

The region isn't just losing ER service and inpatient beds; we're also losing a chemo clinic, MRI/CT/mammogram imaging, two physical therapy clinics, an endoscopy center, a surgical center, a pain clinic, and an occupational health clinic. And 500 local jobs. All gone. Wasn't as important as one rich guy being fractionally richer. That's what the free market decided. God bless America.

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in reply to @pervocracy's post:

wolf-and-ghostling
@wolf-and-ghostling

i'm sure there's many new issues that would arise from this but 'people who own a hospital (the building or land) must live nearest to said hospital, so it is the ER that serves them (+ all the other departments available at said hospital are also their go to)'. or you know, just the much more simple 'hospitals are property of the local jurisdiction and cannot be privately owned'.

but the whole hospitaling thing is a business and it's all about investors so keeping it local would disrupt that whole industry :') people who own hospitals are too rich to be impacted by the consequences of their actions so why would they care

(i'm european so my basis for these things is very different; i don't have to worry about finding somewhere with 'in network' doctors, the clinic/hospital i get referred to will always be the nearest to me that has the department i need. hospitals get shut down here too of course, but that's a decision that's taken by local elected officials - mayor's office, generally - so it's not as simple and straightforward)

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pervocracy
@pervocracy

The sad thing is that the hospital was making money! There were plenty of patients! If the hospital had still owned its land (which it did originally, it's been an institution for 50ish years) instead of having it sold out from under it, it would easily be covering its expenses!

But covering expenses doesn't leave enough extra for yachts

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amagire
@amagire

every time I try to firmly oppose the death penalty in all cases another motherfucker goes "hey, if we sell our land to a subsidiary company and lease it back from them, we'll generate 2000% profit this quarter (and next quarter doesn't matter because I won't be CFO then, but think of the size of my productivity bonus!)" and then I'm like, hm, drawing and quartering, let's bring that back

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