ER Lite

EDITORIAL

Acouple of Fridays ago, some Rockdale and county leaders just may have gotten a glimpse of what post-hospital emergency care may look like for our city and surroundings.

Of course, all this is in response to the closing of our hospital and clinics earlier this year. Two clinics are now open, but there’s still no emergency care, or post-working hours care, in Rockdale and that has a lot of people rightfully concerned.

By the way, it was good to see one misconception—of which, hopefully, Rockdale folks are fully aware—got cleared up right away when one of our visitors said something about our hospital “failing.”

Rockdale’s hospital didn’t fail. The company which was managing it failed Rockdale’s hospital. And Rockdale.

Things were fairly good when it focused on providing health care for Rockdale. But when that company, as they say in East Texas, got “too big for its britches,” deciding it would become a multi-regional, even multi-state health care player, and began shifting its resources to places other than 1700 Brazos Street, things began to head south.

Ending up in, so to speak, Antarctica.

But here’s where we are. There’s a grant available through the Health Sciences Center at Texas A&M to try and deal with what happens in towns like ours when part, or all, of their health care goes away. Rockdale is not the only place that has happened.

One idea, which looks like it’s going to get tried out, is for an automated pod—or kiosk, or whatever other term you want to call it—to be installed here, open 24/7.

A patient would step in, follow the instructions to have your vital signs taken and transmitted, describe your symptoms, then have what amounts to a video chat with a health care professional.

That person could offer advice, which might be “get to an actual ER as quick as you can” or “call an ambulance” or it could be to take some medicine. Medicine could be dispensed on the spot from an automated machine in the pod.

Yes, there would be a fee, probably about $50.

Additional ideas were floated but this is the one which will most affect Rockdale residents.

Some important things to remember. This is all brand new and it’s envisioned as a prototype for use, well everywhere.

And, this can’t be said too loudly or too often, after the grant goes away in two years, we’re going to have to come up with some way to fund this new idea, whatever form it takes.

Yes, that could mean more taxes. The Rock-dale Hospital District is hoping the tax burden of local health care could be spread around by expanding the boundaries of that district—essentially the Rockdale city limits—to those of the school district or beyond.

A caveat, and it’s an enormous one, people in those areas between Rockdale and whatever new boundary is proposed, are going to have to vote themselves a tax increase.

Or ideas will remain just that, ideas.—M.B.