The lone hospital in Martin County, North Carolina, still has electricity even though it closed in 2023. Its vacant patient rooms are still kept chilly by air conditioning. Additionally, the building’s medical gas system expenditures are still covered by the county.
This is because the residents of Martin County, which is in rural eastern North Carolina, are committed to preventing the beige brick structure from getting worse and to finding a way to restore their hospital, which has been having financial difficulties for many years.
Martin County recognized an opportunity when North Carolina expanded Medicaid later in 2023, following the hospital’s closure, providing government health insurance to the state’s low-income citizens. Due in large part to federal funds flooding into the state to pay for patients’ care under Medicaid, plans to partially reopen the hospital came to pass.
However, following the passage of President Trump’s comprehensive domestic policy measure by Congress, those plans are now in doubt, as is the Medicaid coverage for hundreds of thousands of North Carolina residents. The package decreases federal expenditure on Medicaid to help pay for tax cuts, which puts states that expanded the program under Obamacare in a particularly tough position.
According to Paul Roberson, a real estate agent and community leader in Williamston, where a sign outside the hospital reads CLOSED, Martin General Hospital will most likely not reopen if Medicaid expansion is repealed in North Carolina. This would have a devastating and fatal effect. Call 911 if you need help right now.
Mr. Roberson stated that the absence of a hospital in this area is costing lives, pointing out that the closest hospital was around thirty minutes away by car. For us, this is the most crucial factor.
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