Current Affairs

[caile]

This piece is inspired by the recent news of cuts to emergency surgery hours at the local hospital. It's part of a trend of declining services in rural areas which make me wonder about the future of the place I live in and love.I had a real ginchy feeling about the whole trip, even afore we set out, a sorta squirmy stomach clenching feeling, like

Comments

[similiesslip]

It's scary to think of the implications of reducing the hours for emergency surgeries. I couldn't get the link to the article to work but I do hope the hospital gets more funding. Surely there might be something else they could cut instead?

Your story is a good example of how treatment time really matters to an injury.

[caile]

It is scary. The decision was made by a district health authority that also oversees five urban hospitals, which are two hours away from us. The local hospital staff are just as angry as residents, but they have little say. And the website went down just as I linked to it apparently!

[jacq22]

A great story and the implications are far reaching. Our local hospital no longer does surgery or delivers babies, sad isn't it? We struggle to keep doctors as its a rural area but we do have a hospital still!

[basric]

And the lack of qualified staff and funding things are only going to get worse. People live longer so they are getting sick when before they'd have died 20 years ago. Its a frightening time in medicine.

[alien_infinity]

Cutting emergency surgery? How is that a good idea or the thing to reduce for budget's sake? :O

[n3m3sis42]

Seriously. Isn't that the last thing you'd want to cut? I don't get it.

[notodette]

I can't even imagine how that meeting must have gone down.

[whipchick]

This is a really neat voice, and I love that I'm getting post-apocalyptic without the characters saying much about it. Great characters, and your descriptions of them really shine.