Time for health care to cooperate

Sat, May 17 2008

— Muskogee Community Hospital’s opening next year will be a mixed bag for the community. The new facility will face challenges and present tough challenges for the community’s other health care services. But overall, the new hospital should become an important asset that complements the other health care facilities in town.
Muskogee, like most regional hubs, is a microcosm of the state and country.
Based on what we see in the state and country, we know that often we prepare poorly for changes, new technology often outgrows our ability to pay for the advancements, and our motivation for providing health care is not purely altruistic, but also guided by greed and hope for personal gain.
We also know that in Muskogee, the community hospital will open following differences and tensions between some doctors and Muskogee Regional Medical Center, when it was a public hospital, and some city officials, who feared, rightly or wrongly, the competition to the public hospital.
That has changed now that MRMC is managed by a private corporation.
Some tensions may remain between the two entities. They also will be competing for patients and a limited number of doctors, nurses and other workers.
But consider the positives.
The presence of the two hospitals and the VA Medical Center and other facilities in Muskogee will attract new health care workers looking for work.
Muskogee serves a wide region and baby boomers are aging. The need for health care facilities is great and continuing to grow.
Sure, there are challenges, and yes, the founding of Muskogee Community Hospital had a tumultuous start.
But what we want in Muskogee are people who rise above the difficulties and differences.
We expect everyone — from those building MCH and those in charge of MRMC to the Cherokee Nation, which recently opened a clinic, and the private interests managing other clinics and medical facilities — to rise above the differences and cooperate for their interests and the interests of the community.