LIMA — For lawmakers in Washington, D.C., it can be difficult at times to understand the local impact of decisions made on Capitol Hill. Because of that, administrators at St. Rita’s Medical Center were gratified when representatives of U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, reached out to them about having the senator pay the facility a visit.
“Any time we have an opportunity to visit with an elected official about what’s going on the community so they can understand the impact of some of the decisions that are made at the federal level and educate them on what’s going on here at what Mercy Health’s doing to improve the health of the community, we want to take advantage of those opportunities,” St. Rita’s CEO Bob Baxter said.
During Brown’s visit Monday, the senator got to meet both with administrators and employees, learning more about St. Rita’s and its place in the Lima community.
“I think cities this size have a different set of issues,” Brown said. “One is that the hospital is almost always the biggest employer in town. Also, people depend on the hospital for all kinds of community services. They look to a hospital like this to set the tone, sometimes, on a variety of community issues, and I think they play that role very well.”
Baxter and other administrators discussed with the senator St. Rita’s efforts to offer increased care for high-risk patients after they are released from the hospital.
“As an elected official, he needs to know what the focuses are at the local and community level, how we help people stay healthy while they’re out of the hospital, not only getting the best care when they’re in the hospital, which is what we’ve always been about, but ensuring that once they leave the hospital, they don’t have to come back again soon,” Baxter said.
When it comes to health care, specifically the Affordable Care Act, Brown maintained that many people he talked to were generally in favor of the law.
“In Allen County, there are between 5,000 and 10,000 people who have health insurance who didn’t have it five years ago because of the Affordable Care Act, and there are also a lot of consumer protections for families with a sick child and who couldn’t get insurance as a result and now can,” he said.
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