The share of rural Americans who live in communities without a hospital grows each year. Its part of an ongoing collapse in rural health care that has persisted for decades and isnt improving, despite regulatory efforts to shore up small-hospital finances.
Since 2010, about 150 rural hospitals have shuttered and hundreds more have slashed services, leaving a growing number of Americas 60 million rural residents in health care deserts.
In this 2020 encore episode of the Tradeoffs podcast, Dan Gorenstein talks with KFF Health News chief rural health correspondent Sarah Jane Tribble about her yearlong effort to document the collapse of one rural Kansas community hospital. Nearly six years later, the residents of Fort Scott, Kansas, still live without a local hospital, a reality visited upon dozens more small towns in the years since.
Were talking about millions of lives affected by the kind of health care delivery thats in these communities, Tribble said. Rural America, on a whole, is poorer, sicker and older than urban America. People whose lives are affected daily by chronic health issues. Related Topics Health Industry Multimedia Rural Health States Audio Emergency Medicine Hospitals Kansas No Mercy Contact Us Submit a Story Tip
