To the Editor:
Two words that sum up the experience with The Villages Regional Hospital. Two words that seem to be the politest forms of muttering under the breaths of the patients and their caregivers/family/friends as we sit for Hours to be seen by medical personnel. The Emergency Room triage staff work diligently to get the patient initially assessed within a reasonable time, and the administrative processing never gets seconded to any other.
The Disgrace is this: for all the dollars expended to make it a visual beauty, the Villages Hospital is an operational disgrace. This is seemingly due – IMHO – from the lack of resources (bed space, consulting suites, doctors, Hospitalists, and other medical professionals) for the rapidly Increasing and ever-aging community it serves. Patients were told that they could not be seen because the beds in the ER are not available due to incoming ambulance requirements. That, to patients who have already awaited numerous hours (often multi shift changes) prior to the incoming ambulance. [It should be noted that from observation of the patients awaiting, a consulting room without a bed would have been just as beneficial as all but two of the 50 individuals observed were fully ambulatory.]. Or they were simply told by staff that the doctors were “not available.”
Added to this is an apparent lack of operational prioritization of present patients versus incoming ones. If an ER has a full waiting room and all its bays are likewise occupied, shouldn’t the Emergency Response System redirect new inbound ambulance traffic to an alternate (ie, Leesburg or Ocala) facility? Now I realize that some level of “wait” is to be expected. But are the data the Villages Hospital reports as summarized in the annual report to the CenteCenter for Medicare and Medicaid Servicesr for Medicare and Medicaid Services accurate? From my several experiences in the past, and that of more than 17 hours (and counting) tonight/this morning observing the progress of these 50 fellow patients, I highly doubt it.
B. Howard Penix
Village of Buttonwood
