{"id":26138,"date":"2022-10-09T18:16:34","date_gmt":"2022-10-09T22:16:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=26138"},"modified":"2022-10-09T18:16:43","modified_gmt":"2022-10-09T22:16:43","slug":"letter-to-the-editor-no-hospital-is-needed-on-540a-and-harrell-nursery-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2022\/10\/09\/letter-to-the-editor-no-hospital-is-needed-on-540a-and-harrell-nursery-road\/","title":{"rendered":"Letter to the Editor, No Hospital is needed on 540A and Harrell Nursery Road"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Dear Polk County Commissioners,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, thank you for your service as County Commissioners. As a resident of a neighborhood off of Harrell Nursery Road, and CEO\/ED of an area long-term care provider (and former acute care health system consultant and executive) I am extremely concerned about the HCA proposal for a hospital at 540A and Harrell Nursery Road.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

As I have written you once before on this subject, I will simply provide a bullet point list of why I ask you to vote against this hospital proposal:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Terrible location in the middle of a neighborhood, across from an Elementary School, close to a high school, and the infrastructure does not support such a development (consider the width of Harrell Nursery and Peterson Roads as an example);<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. The real safety risks of having ambulances and helicopters traverse the area (see HG.org<\/a> The Rash of EMS Helicopter Crashes in the U.S. – What is Causing Them and How Can They Be Prevented in the Future). A Google search on EMS Helicopter Crashes notes sadly real examples.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. The highest best use of the property is as it is presently zoned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. HCA has a present and past history of Medicare fraud having paid the largest settlement for Medicare fraud in the history of the USA,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5. Lakeland Regional has 100 acres on 98. This is a great location for another hospital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

6. People often cite a survey done in 2020 suggesting Polk County is in need of 600 more hospital beds. This was based on the well above normal hospital bed occupancy during a pandemic the likes we have not seen in 100 years. Plus consider the new hospital beds being added already without this one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

7. We now have recently added a Rehab Hospital, a Behavioral Health Hospital, and new hospitals are already preparing to begin construction (Orlando Health, VA Hospital) and Winter Haven, Bartow are considering additions and Lakeland Regional is building on Kathleen and South Florida (and again, they have 100 acres on 98 ) and none of these are in the middle of a neighborhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

8. A hospital in this location will cause significant noise pollution and light pollution as they are open 24\/7. Google search the health impacts of light or noise pollution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

9. HCA promotes job creation. We do not need more healthcare jobs. There are three nurse openings in Polk County for every eligible and qualified nurse. There are two jobs nationwide for every eligible unemployed person. What this will do is force closures due to staffing for other health care providers such as Skilled Nursing and Rehab facilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

10. Tax impact on the County. The County will gain significantly more tax revenue if we can be patient and support the development of a hospital on the 100 acres on 98.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

11. There are much better locations up and down 98 and within a five-mile radius of the proposed site not in the middle of a neighborhood and schools. The 24-hour traffic a hospital will bring to this area will kill this neighborhood. They will provide studies showing home values will rise over time in this area. Historically and in almost every region, home values go up over time. Measure if the home values located near a hospital rise at the same rate as houses in neighborhoods in the same community, not near the hospital. In the hospital I worked at, they did not (eventually Elmhurst Hospital in Illinois moved out of the neighborhood to a location away from houses-incidentally they sold the old hospital to a home builder.).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

12. HCA is presenting initiatives they will fund to blind the reality that this is not a sound location for hospitals. Their actions suggest they intend to buy their way in. HCA clinically is not strong either and there are numerous articles on employee dissatisfaction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

13. They suggest that adding another hospital system will bring down healthcare costs. If anyone believes they will have a procedure of any kind that will cost less once another hospital is in our area, they have not had a health care experience over the past 20 years. It will not save any citizen of the County money. The USA has the most expensive healthcare system in the world. I won\u2019t debate this effort’s clinical outcome quality position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

14. There is a significant shortage of nurses, aides, housekeepers, kitchen staff, techs, etc. another hospital will drive up wages and increase healthcare costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

15. The school board did not support this project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

16. The County Planning Commission did not support rezoning for this project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

17. The concern of hospital patients wandering into surrounding neighborhoods is real.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

18. The thousands of voters living within a three-mile radius overwhelmingly do not support this project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Please vote against this proposal. Thank you for your consideration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sincerely,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joe<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Joseph J. Xanthopoulos<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Polk County Commissioners, First, thank you for your service as County Commissioners. As a resident of a neighborhood off of Harrell Nursery Road, and CEO\/ED of an area long-term… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26139,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[11],"tags":[3660],"class_list":["post-26138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-letters","tag-letter-to-the-editor"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26138\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}