U.S. Representative Mo Brooks (R-Huntsville) is not impressed with the state of Alabama’s hospitals because of mandated government policies in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
Initially, state officials anticipated a woefully inadequate amount of hospital beds because of COVID-19, which forced hospital administrators to cease elective surgeries, which has, in turn, deprived many hospitals of operating revenue, and therefore requiring assistance from the federal government.
During an interview with Huntsville radio’s WVNN, Brooks blamed “bad intelligence” and decisionmaking from afar in Montgomery for the dire financial situation hospitals are facing.
“In fairness to a lot of the hospital administrators, they got a lot of bad intelligence,” Brooks said. “To me, it would have been smarter to wait until you see what’s actually going to happen. As it is happening, that’s where you cut into the amount of elective surgery that may result in somebody having an overnight stay in the hospital or a week-long stay in the hospital. So, don’t do it so far in advance. Wait until you’ve gotten closer, where you’ve got more information so you can make a more informed decision. And don’t do it with a broad-brush, once-size-shoe-fits-all-feet approach. Different parts of the country had different COVID-19 effects. We in Alabama came nowhere close to needing the number of beds that were set aside, and as a consequence, our hospitals in Alabama are getting hit hard. Some of them may go bankrupt and out-of-business, thereby depriving some of our counties of the hospitals that they now enjoy.”
Brooks went on to say “elective surgery” seemed to be an ambiguous term, which he added is something that should be left up to those on the local level.
“I don’t know of any federal government mandate to the hospital — maybe there is one, and I just missed it,” he explained. “If I recall correctly, and I believe my memory tells me that there was a provision in Governor Ivey’s shutdown order to end elective surgery. Elective surgery has a lot of ambiguity to it, a lot of different meanings … We should have let the hospital administrators with the information they have make a decision for their community based on what the facts are on the ground in their community as opposed to a statewide application or some sort of federal application because again different parts of the country have been affected differently. New York’s situation is far different than say Hazel Green’s situation, or New Hope’s situation, or Hartsalle’s situation. We should have let the people who are in charge of those facilities and the medical community work that out rather than some bureaucrat or politician doing it.”
@Jeff_Poor is a graduate of Auburn University and the University of South Alabama, the editor of Breitbart TV, a columnist for Mobile’s Lagniappe Weekly and host of Huntsville’s “The Jeff Poor Show” from 2-5 p.m. on WVNN.
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