The health care system in San Benito County got a kick in the
butt Wednesday, and our elected officials have plenty of work ahead
to fix glaring problems with two sectors of the medical
community.
The health care system in San Benito County got a kick in the butt Wednesday, and our elected officials have plenty of work ahead to fix glaring problems with two sectors of the medical community.
First came the release of the civil grand jury report that pointed to a laundry list of weaknesses at the San Benito County Behavioral Health Department, most notably a failure to hire anywhere near a full staff of currently funded clinicians and case workers.
The same day, the U.S. House passed a bill introduced by Congressman Sam Farr, D-Carmel, to leave the county’s Medicare reimbursements for local doctors flat while raising those of surrounding counties. It’s a frightening prospect poised to severely weaken our ability to recruit doctors while carrying a potential to send our health care system into an incurable tailspin, especially when compounded by rising Blue Cross reimbursement rates and an expected, drastic shortage of doctors nationwide.
In the immediate future, county supervisors are set to examine the grand jury report. They should be prepared, at the very least, to find out why the department left two of 16.8 funded positions unfilled for the first half of 2006 and why, when federal funds created six positions in July of last year, behavioral health hired only one such worker as of November.
The jury also reported that behavioral health was defective in providing access to information on its substance-abuse program, had delayed responses to cases reported during summer for at-risk children and lacked measurable goals.
Once the board hears reasons for the shortfalls – it should come sooner than later – we expect supervisors to address the shortage to ensure residents the situation will improve and that behavioral health can adequately meet the local demand for those services.
In the long term, though, the crisis faced by local physicians could spell a broader disaster not only for doctors, but also for citizens whose quality of health care inevitably will decline if we can’t compete with surrounding counties.
If more doctors leave, the patients will leave with them. And Hazel Hawkins Memorial Hospital, our hometown fixture, will suffer.
It’s a shame the formula devised under Farr’s legislation left us isolated with a target on our back telling doctors they can do better elsewhere. We invite Farr to provide a better rationale than we’ve heard so far. Because attributing the dilemma to a formula and hoping someday we meet its criteria doesn’t cut it, and it certainly won’t debunk the reputation we now carry.
