RE: Regional hospital

["Jeff Goebel" <goebel@palouse.net>]

Medical equipment doesn't get cheaper because a person wants a local
community hospital.

We are losing many elderly from our communities because the desired medical
care is somewhere else.  This is more than Moscow or Pullman.  This is about
Troy and Harvard and Lacrosse and Palouse.

Good suggestions about rebuilding when there are existing buildings.
Someone suggested building an agreement where each community would
specialize in certain health care needs.  Someone also suggested it doesn't
have to be the corridor, it could be around the airport.

Thanks for the perspectives.  Jeff

Carl Jeffry Goebel
Goebel and Associates
Web page: www.aboutlistening.com

 -----Original Message-----
From: 	Tom Lamar [mailto:tlamar@moscow.com]
Sent:	Saturday, November 25, 2000 8:05 PM
To:	vision2020@moscow.com
Subject:	RE: Regional hospital

Jeff asked some questions about why people oppose building a joint hospital
between Pullman and Moscow.  I am opposed to such a move for several
reasons:

1) The hospital in Moscow is an integral part of our community.  Moving it
out of Moscow for the sole reason of making it closer to Pullman doesn't
make sense.  There is currently room around Gritman for expansion if that
would be necessary to increase services to the region.

2) Construction of any large demand facility in the corridor is a bad idea
for transportation flow between Pullman and Moscow.  I believe that sprawl
into the corridor is a bad thing for our area. Our communties and
Universities are better served by an ability to move quickly between towns.

3) Building a new facility wasteful of resources when the opportunity exists
to simply expand on what we have when needed.

4) Putting a hospital in the corridor doesn't just end with that facility.
With that investment comes the relocation of doctors' offices, food
establishments, etc. I think this discussion is much more complicated than
simply "wouldn't it make sense to split the cost of a bunch of medical
equipment".

5) The hospitals can work together by specializing in what they do best,
without relocating entire facilities out of town.

I strongly believe that keeping our communities in tact and not just
relocating them out to the corridor is looking to the greater good.  It is
the "pro-community" position.  I think physical relocation is not the
make-or-break condition for working together as a "greater Palouse"
community.

In many communities around the country, large buildings are being abandoned
in the effort to relocate to even larger buildings.  Three-plex movie
theatres are being abandoned for 20-plex theaters because it "makes economic
sense".  This seems to be the basic argument by those that wish to build a
large corridor hospital, and it doesn't feel like a decision that would
build community.  Those are my reasons for opposing the idea.

Tom