Rural communities of color across the US find new ways to get the health care they need
Many rural hospitals have closed in the last decade in the United States and a recent report from the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform says about 700 more are at risk of shuttering
Haywood Park Community Hospital was the closest hospital for many in Brownsville, Tennessee, a rural city in the western part of the state.
Some residents believe it kept their loved ones alive. But others in this majority-Black city said they drove to a hospital miles away or skipped care completely. The facility eventually closed in 2014 after a decline in patients.
“Despite my ill feelings or experiences I had in that environment,” said Alma Jean Thomas Carney, who described the hospital's white staff as unwelcoming, “you have indigent people living in Haywood County who need to get to the closest facility available.”
It's more common for people in rural areas to die earlier than urban residents from things like heart disease, cancer and stroke, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But hospitals have closed throughout rural America in the last decade, leaving some of the 46 million people who live in these areas fewer options to get the care they need when they need it.
