JD Crowe: People are dying in Alabama’s ‘ambulance desert’
This is an opinion cartoon.
“In the three weeks since Pickens County dropped down to one ambulance, two women died after waiting an hour for paramedics to arrive.”
That’s the first line of Savannah Tryens-Fernandes’ report on Alabama’s ‘ambulance desert.’
It’s an enlightening report. Read all of it here.
Let’s cut to the chase: Many of Alabama’s rural healthcare issues could be fixed with one stroke of the pen by Gov. Ivey. Expand Medicaid. To include the working poor people of Alabama. Rural Alabama. The places that need at least one more ambulance. Or one more doctor. To save a life. Or two.
Medicaid expansion is frowned upon by Ivey because it’s an Obamacare thing. And because it works. Why not just embrace it and call it yours? That’s how politics works, right?
So, let’s do this: Call it IveyCare. Or TrumpsterCare. What Alabama has now is WeDon’tCare. Maybe we just need NobodyCares.
Medicaid expansion would help cure a lot of ills in this defiant state. If nobody cared who got the credit.
The ‘one ambulance’ problem in Pickens County is a mixed bag of Alabama dysfunction. Read on …
Excerpts from This Alabama county is now down to just one ambulance: ‘It costs lives’
“Pickens County moved to only one ambulance on Oct. 25. The reduction in ambulance service is just the latest in a downward spiral, as rural communities across Alabama watch emergency rooms and hospitals shutter, and as pediatricians, dentists and maternity care have disappeared in over a third of the state’s counties.
“Sullivan McCrory said her team of paramedics has had to triage callers ever since the move to one ambulance. She said it’s not unusual to get two to three calls all within an hour, forcing them to decide where to go based on which call is most life-threatening.
“All I know is people are suffering,” she told AL.com. “What can you do when you have one ambulance in a county with over 19,000 people in it?”
“In 2022, Alabama passed a law deeming emergency medical services and ambulances an essential service, saying “emergency medical services are an essential public service and a part of the health care safety net for many residents of this state.”
“Alabama is one of 37 states to pass such a law. But unlike most other states, Alabama does not require the state government to fund the service.
“U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell represents Pickens County in Washington. Her office said typically the only source of federal funding for those services comes from Medicare reimbursements. She has introduced two bills in the House since 2021 to increase rates for both ambulances and rural hospitals to help them stay operational. But neither bill has received a vote.
“Congresswoman Sewell and our whole team have spent years pushing for congressional action to address these ambulance shortages at the federal level,” said Christopher Kosteva, Sewell’s Communications Director, in a statement to AL.com. “This issue has been exacerbated by the state’s refusal to expand Medicaid, which has put an enormous strain on the resources of rural health care providers.”
“When asked by AL.com if any emergency support could be provided by the state to keep an ambulance running, a spokesperson for Gov. Kay Ivey’s office said “we continue monitoring and are aware of developments in Pickens County, but at this time, you may wish to reach out to local officials.”
Read the whole report right here: This Alabama county is now down to just one ambulance: ‘It costs lives’
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JD Crowe is the cartoonist for Alabama Media Group and AL.com. He won the RFK Human Rights Award for Editorial Cartoons in 2020. In 2018, he was awarded the Rex Babin Memorial Award for local and state cartoons by the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists. Follow JD on Facebook, Twitter @Crowejam and Instagram @JDCrowepix. Give him a holler @[email protected].