Hundreds gather for 'save our hospital' rally in Warren
On a warm, muggy Thursday night, hundreds of people filled a small lawn along East Market Street in Warren.
In the shadows of Trumbull Regional Medical Center, where emergencies are handled quickly and deftly, the crowd rallied against another kind of emergency - the closing of Trumbull Regional and Hillside Rehab.
"It's a health care crisis," said Dr. Larry Woods, a cardiologist at the hospital. A crisis he says must be averted.
Meeting with state health officials earlier in the day, Woods did not mince words to get his point across to them.
"People are going to die," he said. "These are people that we're not going to be able to take care of acutely that are going to have to go somewhere else that may not make it."
Trumbull County commissioner Niki Frenchko set up that meeting to make sure state leaders knew how urgent the situation is.
She says transportation issues and other logistical concerns are leaving ICU, psych and heart patients especially vulnerable.
"Already we have obstacles in access to care in our community because of the shortage of doctors," said Frenchko. "The state was not aware that we had issues with our morgue, we have the issue with our 911 building which is part of Hillside and not having utilities."
Frenchko points out that in addition to capacity concerns, there is more than just distance between Trumbull Regional and St. Joe's. There's also construction.
Frenchko points out that the diverging diamond intersection being installed in Howland leaves a single lane of traffic, raising the concern that if an ambulance were diverted from Trumbull to St. Joe's, depending on the time of day, they may find themselves stuck in traffic for extended periods of time.
Frenchko says she recognizes that this is a critical project due to the amount of accidents in Howland, but the construction phases cause detour route and traffic pattern changes and even one-lane traffic that is sometimes backed up by a mile.
In addition, Frenchko points out there are differences in services and what is available. For example, Trumbull Regional has a surgical backup team for heart catheterizations that other hospitals don't necessarily have.
Frenchko is optimistic that there could be some movement from Columbus, ultimately hoping the governor will declare a public health emergency that will give the county more options, including the potential for taking the hospital by eminent domain in order to combat what she calls and inflated value that is currently over $70 million.
Frenchko says time is of the essence, pointing to an already less than ideal situation with regard to doctor/patient ratios, which are worse in Ohio than the national average and are worse in Trumbull county than they are in the rest of Ohio.
In the meantime, the large crowd at Thursday's rally sent a message of its own.
They demanded Governor DeWine call a special session of the legislature and pool state dollars to make sure this emergency is addressed.
"Governor DeWine, are you listening? Get your a** down here and help these people!!!" yelled UAW Region 2B director Dave Green to the crowd, met with cheers.
It's a message these folks hope resonates in time to save their hospitals.
