Letter To The Editor
The Cordell Memorial Hospital is at distinct crossroads in the ultimate survival of health care delivery as we know it in Cordell and the surrounding areas of Washita County. We are the only remaining hospital in our county and our approval of the onecent sales tax on September 10 is beyond critical! This passage will not only assist the hospital, but also local pharmacies, the Cordell Christian Home and the Baptist Village, as well as the life and death response times versus other out of county alternatives.
Our hospital has a $4 million payroll with over 50 full-time employees, having an economic impact to our community of four to five times this figure totaling approximately $20 million to Cordell and Washita County. Taking our hospital away is akin to the impact of closing the Cordell School system or losing our Washita county seat; all with their far-reaching tentacles into our community and area. Since community leaders, including my father, partnered to establish the new hospital in 1959, Cordell Memorial has treated tens of thousands of patients and saved or extended numerous lives, myself included.
I was attending a meeting in the cafeteria at CMH in the late summer of 2017 and decided on a whim, with no apparent symptoms, to have a lung scan while I was there. The net result from the scan was the detection of three major blockages to my primary heart arteries. Due to this $50 scan offered by CMH, I was stented by December 2017 to restore blood flow to my heart. I am a classic example of a potentially life-saving intervention that was detected, isolated, and corrected at CMH.
This sales tax measure will be a tangible boost to CMH’s future prospects , but will also need to be reinforced with other rural hospital initiatives at the state and federal level to bring our various reimbursement payments on par with our urban counterparts.
There are countless reasons to throw our support as Cordell voters behind the hospital plan: future and present businesses demand local health care for their employees, an emergency room that treats 150 patients on average each month, and the ability to recruit and retain physicians including PAs , CNPs and out of area specialists to our dynamic clinics.
We need our hospital to survive! CMH most likely added a few years to my life. We don’t know who might be next to be the beneficiary of CMH”s life giving benefits – it may just be you!
Phil Kliewer
Cordell