Ok, I am going to present my spin on the hospital issue. Some of my thoughts wont be popular, but so be it.

Our nation is facing the worst economic times that most of us have ever seen, and predictions are that it will get worse before it gets better. I read that around 150,000 jobs were cut in this country last month and the month before, and that trend is expected to continue through the rest of the year.

An increase in property taxes was approved recently to improve our schools. Now, either by sales tax or another proprety tax increase, our civic leaders want to build a new hospital. Both are good projects, but expensive projects. Does our current economy support taking on both projects at the same time? No!

We have been told that the new hospital will be self-supportive. If our hospital has that income, why was the current facility not maintained and allowed to deteriorate to the current condition? The age of the facility is not a valid argument. It was discovered that the St. Joe campus of Via-Christi in Wichta was built the same year as our facility. It is in fine condition today, serving the community very well. It was well maintained and it was updated over the years. Why was this not done in our facility? What evidence is there to convince us that a new facility will be taken better care of and not allowed to fall into the same state? Past history and performance does not convince me that the future will be different.

Now I am going to make some of you angry at me. We have been told that either a sales tax must be implemented or another property tax increase made for the current plan to go forward. Among the list of options, one extreme given was that failing to get those increases, the facility could simply be closed. So what if it does close! People..think..we have a fully operational care center, even a Cancer center only 15 minutes north of here! In these hard financial times, why spend millions to build a facility when we have one that is only a measly 10 miles or so away? That distance is nothing! I drive it everyday. An ambulance would cover that distance even faster. It doesnt not make sense to have 2 facilities that close together. What would have made sense would have been for Winfield and Ark City to have pooled their resources and built a 1st class center between the 2 towns.

Our leaders believe that if they build this expensive hospital, with a cancer center that it will be a big economic plus for this area. In the Saturday paper Alan Groom stated, People now have to go to Wichita to get health care and it would be a benefit to be able to get those things here. The belief being that people will come here for major health issues because it is close instead of going to places like Wichita. Lets be realistic.That is nothing more than a fantasy and it is 1st grade wishful thinking. If you have cancer or major heart issues, are you going to go to a new small town center with no proven track record, or are you going to go to a larger, established care center with experience, a proven performance and people who have proven themselves over the test of time? If you have a illness that is a threat to your life, you dont care about how close or convenient a place is, you want the best. That best is NOT going to be here. Speaking for myself, I dont care what they build here, or even what they have in Winfield for that matter. I would only be in it long enough to become stable enough to be moved to Wichita.

All of us have things we want, things we need. But we have to make do with that we have because that is all we can afford. We have to send the message to this city that in these hard and dire times they will have to do the same. Tighten up and make do. If we dont, many of us will not be able to afford the things we struggle to have now. We have to accept the fact that we cant afford this. They chose to do the schools. That means they chose against the hospital as we simply cant afford both. Hard times elect require hard choices. If we cant make this facility serve for a few more years until this economy improves, we need to close it and go north to Winfield.

Lets not make things more difficult for those who are already having to give up necessities. Lets work together and help each other survive and get through these times. This is a time to get out of debt, not go deeper into it. We have learned that, it is time we teach that to our civic leaders as well.