Cape Regional, Shore Medical have sacrificed
We ask that our U.S. senators, Cory Booker and Robert Menendez, come through for our local hospitals that were left out of federal Health and Human Services funding earlier this month.
Shore Medical Center and Cape Regional Medical Center have geared up just like hospitals across the country to prepare and then fight the COVID-19 pandemic at great cost to them and to the communities serve in Atlantic and Cape May counties.
Although the number of coronavirus cases in our area is much lower than in other parts of New Jersey, the sacrifices our local hospitals made in revenue and in staff furloughs matches those throughout the country. To get ready for the pandemic, the hospitals stopped elective and non-essential surgeries and other aspects of their care to prepare for the feared volume of COVID-19 cases that had overwhelmed hospitals in other parts of New Jersey, in York City, and other parts of the nation and world.
To leave them out of the funding formula puts our medical centers, like other smaller hospitals across the country, at risk.
Health and Human Services awarded $12 billion to 395 hospitals that cared for at least 100 COVID-19 patients through April 10. There also was $10 billion sent to rural hospitals that had been operating on thin margins before the pandemic.
Shore Medical Center and Cape Regional did not qualify because they didn’t fit the exact parameters of the funding – that 100-patient margin. However, they had served that many COVID-19 patients if one who were served as early as January were counted.
Hospital officials don’t begrudge the funding to the other hospitals. In fact, they applaud it as a critical step. However, they are asking to be included.
We need our local hospitals. We have been fortunate that of the more than 137,000 COVID-19 cases statewide, Cape May County only had about 450 by the end of last week and Atlantic County was at nearly 1,500. That is compared to more than 16,000 cases in some of north Jersey counties.
While the impact was not as great, our local counties – residents, officials, businesses – had to work hard to keep the caseload down through social distancing and other efforts because there aren’t as many hospital beds available in this region. For that fact, it is more crucial than ever that the federal government help Cape Regional and Shore Medical because they are urgently needed not just a pandemic strikes, but every single day of the year.
Please, Sen. Booker and Sen. Menendez, come through for our local hospitals.