Hiding in the shadows cast by big city outbreaks, the novel coronavirus has now quickly spread to more than 1,000 rural communities. This pandemic’s sweep of our nation’s prairies and plains comes as hundreds of rural hospitals are on the verge of closure, potentially leaving tens of thousands of people without access to local emergency health services during the contagion’s peak and permanently devastating rural economies.
Before the COVID-19 outbreak, almost half of all rural hospitals were operating at a financial loss. In fact, over the past decade, 128 rural hospitals shut down as a result of financial pressure, and 400 were at risk of closing prior to the pandemic, according to the National Rural Health Association.
Today, much like small businesses across the country, hospitals have been asked to halt all nonemergency services. This abrupt termination of core services and key revenue streams in rural communities is forcing hospitals to forgo 60% to 80% of their revenue.
Consequently, nearly all hospitals in our breadbasket and energy basin are experiencing revenue shortages at catastrophic levels. This has forced the only facilities available to the often-forgotten men and women of rural America to lay off staff, issue massive cuts, and in some cases, shutter their operations entirely. If these community hospitals are unable to access emergency relief funding within days, we could see hundreds of closures across the nation.
Rural Americans served by these hospitals are disproportionately old, poor, and sick, meaning that when the surge hits these rural communities, the mortality rates will likely be disproportionately high. These abandoned healthcare refuges only add to the many miles between life and death situations for the families who feed and fuel the rest of our country.
For much of rural America, the surge has already arrived. John Henderson, president and CEO of the Texas Organization of Rural & Community Hospitals, said that Donley County, in the panhandle of Texas, “has a COVID case rate of 6.50 per 1,000 population, which is 10 times higher than any metro area of Texas, yet the community is 60 miles from a hospital due to closures.”
Similarly, Margaret Mary Health, a 25-bed facility in rural Batesville, Indiana, has been in a coronavirus hot spot for the last two weeks. “We are usually 80% outpatient and 20% inpatient, and we are trying to convert to 30% outpatient and 250% inpatient,” said Tim Putnam, CEO of the hospital.
Our nation’s leaders cannot leave rural America without resources to combat this pandemic. It is essential that these facilities, critical in the fight against COVID-19, can access the Paycheck Protection Program. This temporary and targeted assistance will be a lifeline to healthcare professionals and hospitals, which, in many cases, are the largest employers in the community. As we move forward, relief and recovery packages must provide equitable support for rural communities and their providers to do what they do best — take care of rural Americans.
As we continue to battle against the contagion through social distancing and practicing good hygiene, lives can only be saved by flattening the curve of rural hospital closures.
Jodey Arrington, a Republican, is a member of the U.S. House of Representatives serving Texas’s 19th Congressional District. He serves as a member of the House Ways and Means Committee and as co-chair of the Committee’s Rural Health Care Task Force.
