Piscopo Op-Ed: Is Your Community Hospital Important to You?
For over 125 years, community hospitals have played a vital and significant role in the history of our state, providing over a century of service to the people of Connecticut. Their importance to the communities they serve cannot be understated.
Here in our district, Waterbury Hospital, St. Mary’s Hospital, Charlotte Hungerford Hospital, and Bristol Hospital, provide us with high quality emergency and medical care in addition to mental health services, specialized treatment options, diagnostic imaging, educational programs, and community support.
Not only do our community hospitals provide critical care to residents, but they also are major employers of community residents. Today, thousands of your neighbors and friends are hard at work caring for you, your family and your community.
Community hospitals are also major contributors, and give back to the greater communities they serve.
During special session in December, only a few short months ago, the State Legislature cut $600,000 from hospital budgets statewide as part of the deficit mitigation plan, to help balance the state’s budget deficit. I understood this to be a one-time cut for this fiscal year, ending July1, 2013. Yet Governor Malloy’s proposed budget would cut $550 million in funding for our community hospitals over the next two years. Since we’ve already cut from hospitals, we should look for savings in this $21 billion budget elsewhere.
Cuts to these hospitals means a decrease in the services that they will be able to provide and layoffs for the people who provide those services. Hospital employees should not have their jobs put at risk, or medical programs eliminated because our state government is unable to control its spending.
If you have any comments, questions, or concerns on this or any issue, I want to hear from you. Please call my office at 800-842-1423 or email john.piscopo@housegop.ct.gov.
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