Editor:

To The Voters of Cedar County:

My name is Craig Wamsley and I have been a staff physician at Cedar County Memorial Hospital for the past 13 years. While other opportunities have been available to me over the years, I have chosen to work here. I consider myself a proud and admittedly biased employee. I support the upcoming proposed property-tax levy on Aug. 6 regarding Cedar County Memorial Hospital for the following reasons:

1). The Local-Control Argument – Cedar County Memorial Hospital remains a county-owned and operated hospital and appears to be the last one standing as such in Southwest Missouri. This is one of the key reasons I chose to work here. There are 5 “big” hospitals in SWMO that offer a full or nearly full range of medical services: these are Mercy Springfield, Mercy Joplin, Cox Springfield, Freeman Joplin, and Citizens Memorial of Bolivar. Then there are a number of other hospitals which, though not entirely the same, could be considered as “critical access” or primary care hospitals. One by one, they all have aligned, leased and/or partnered in some fashion with one of these “big” hospitals: Branson, Monett, and Barton County (Lamar) with Cox Springfield; Aurora and Cassville with Mercy Springfield; Carthage with Mercy Joplin; and Nevada with Freeman Joplin. And then there’s Cedar County Memorial Hospital, still standing on its own. I value that when I have a concern, I take it to an administrative staff that was hired by a Board consisting of Cedar County residents, elected by Cedar County voters. I don’t have to arrange a meeting or conference call in St. Louis or Springfield or Joplin or Bolivar; my bosses and “owners” (the voters) are right here.   

2. The “Options” argument – This one is particularly relevant for those who do not use Cedar County Memorial Hospital for their medical needs. We know that there are a large number of Cedar County residents (Stockton in particular) who obtain their health care from someplace other than CCMH. I keep a landline phone at my home, not because I use it, but because I prefer to be prepared for “worse-case-scenario-type” situations. The healthcare landscape is shifting and changing at a pace few of us can remotely keep up with. I might be very satisfied with someone I’m receiving services from now, but how secure is that satisfaction? Having a back-up system for healthcare can still be a valid consideration for downstream, even if I’m satisfied with the status quo now. Things can change, and not everybody will be as satisfied with their choices today as they might be 2 or 5 or 10 years down the road. Regarding Cedar County Memorial Hospital, there is an assumption here that this hospital “may not be around” several years from now if the property tax levy proposal does not pass. This is not a certainty, but has to be regarded as a realistic possibility/probability. The voters of Osceola/ St. Clair County can shed light here as a template; their hospital became financially distressed, was sold, then promptly closed. If your present healthcare system becomes undesirable or inaccessible for whatever reason down the road, is your back-up plan really workable?    

3.  The “We-Have-Quality-Too” argument – nearly everywhere people access their care through a small healthcare system, someone will mention that the hospital is “just a glorified first-aid station”.  I do not take insult to that at all. In many respects, that is what primary care access is all about. Here at Cedar County Memorial, we do primary care. We do not offer the range of services you will get at “bigger” hospitals, like full-time surgeons, full-time specialists, intensive care, and 24/7 advanced imaging (MRI). But when it comes to primary care, we believe the care provided at Cedar County Memorial Hospital is as good as anywhere. We recently became a certified Level 3 Stroke Center, one of only a small handful of Missouri hospitals to do so. We have been awarded by the State of Missouri for patient safety. When you come to our ER, our focus is basic care, stabilization and transfer for specialized care when necessary. With the exception of myself and a rare exception now and then, all of our ER physicians are Board-Certified in Emergency Medicine (I am Board-Certified in Family Practice). This “costs” more, but is a priority that the administration and Board have directed. When it comes to quality of care, we feel that our hospital is very competitive. 

4.  The “Economic-Impact” argument – Cedar County Memorial Hospital employs 124 people and is one of the largest employers in the county. Cedar County isn’t particularly large or densely-populated, so a loss of 124 jobs is worth thinking about in terms of the indirect impact that might occur if those jobs and families go elsewhere. And at some point, one must bring up the point that healthcare costs have risen astronomically since Cedar County Memorial Hospital was built. With all those costs have come daunting medico-legal challenges, regulatory challenges, technology-update challenges, and re-imbursement challenges that have made the cost of providing quality care way, way more difficult than it was 30 or 50 years ago.

This past year, Cedar County Memorial Hospital had no choice but to invest over 2 million dollars in an updated software system for our electronic medical records due to government mandated requirements. The high cost of healthcare provision is something we cannot escape, and virtually all healthcare systems are struggling with this, even the “big” ones. And since American culture cannot agree (and I don’t believe it ever will) on how to bring the costs of healthcare under control, this is not an issue we can hide from. So if Cedar County Memorial Hospital doesn’t survive, think about what the effect might be on your business, overall taxes, home and land values, and your life in the event you someday might require the emergency services of Cedar County Memorial Hospital. This concludes my petition, and thank you for your attention in reading this.   

Craig Wamsley M.D.