In addition to the communities served by Grady Hospital and by D.C. General Hospital, many other communities around the US have been threatened with losses of hospital services. This presentation compares the efforts of the communities of Atlanta and the District of Columbia to save their hospital services with recent similar efforts in New York, Chicago, and the San Francisco Bay Area.
In New York in 1999, south Brooklyn residents succeeded in blocking the privatization of Coney Island Hospital -- a step which they feared would have led to a reduction of local hospital services. Around the same time, residents in the Bay Area and in Chicago were less successful in defending hospital services at Marin General Hospital and Michael Reese Hospital, respectively.
From the three earlier cases, it appears that, communities are more successful in defending their hospital services to the extent that they do a good job of (a) building broad coalitions to defend the hospitals, (b) winning elected officials' support of their efforts, and (c) investigating the prospective operators of hospitals. How these factors and other factors playing into the efforts in Atlanta and the District of Columbia performed will be analyzed.
Learning Objectives: Learn how building broad coalitions, winning elected officials' support, and (c) investigating the prospective operators of hospitals affect community political efforts to defend local access to hospital services.
Keywords: Politics, Hospitals
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: None
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.