Pike County can no longer rely on healthcare infrastructure in neighboring states or counties

To the Editor:

The other day I was looking over the data from the Pennsylvania Department of Health website, and discovered this heading: "Hospital Preparedness Dashboard." The dashboard compares facilities in each of the 67 counties.

I looked at Pike County and compared it with the neighboring county to the north, Wayne County.

Here are some interesting facts: Pike County has approximately 55,900 residents, and Wayne County has 51,000 residents. Wayne County has both a hospital and a county department of health. By contrast, Pike has only one overworked county nurse.

Our county’s health infrastructure is sadly lacking. Pike County had an urgent care facility, but now we lack such a faculty. What is interesting is that when one asks why we do not have a local hospital in Pike County, the official refrain is that the county’s population would not sustain a hospital, and Bon Secours Hospital in Port Jervis, New York is not far away. The official county refrain has been based on an out-of-date survey compiled years ago, and is the justification for not needing to have a hospital or a real healthcare infrastructure.

In the current scenario of ever-increasing numbers of cases of coronavirus COVID-19 seen in Pike County, and the corresponding number of cases cited for neighboring Orange County, N.Y., and in Sussex County , N.J., what happens when our EMS ambulance drivers take individuals from Pike County to Bon Secours Hospital in Port Jervis, N.Y., or Newton Memorial Hospital in Newton, N.J., or Wayne Memorial Hospital in Honesdale, Pa., and are told that those hospitals are full can cannot admit more patients?

Where do our EMS ambulances then take these sick Pike County individuals for care circa 11 April 2020?

This present pandemic reality clearly reveals that the county officialdom can no longer ignore or pass on health-related issues to healthcare infrastructure located in neighboring states or in neighboring counties.

Pike County circa 2020, is not the Pike County of 20 or 30 years ago, and yesterday's solutions fail to address today’s real needs !

I think that it is time that residents of this county learn more about this sad fact. As during this crisis we will probably learn firsthand the sad truth of these facts.

Dr. Robert-A. Ollar

Milford

Editor's note: Dr. Ollar is a clinical assistant professor of neurology at New York Medical College in Valhalla, N.Y. He is a member and consulting microbiologist for the Pike County Tick Borne Diseases Task Force Committee.