A national nurses’ union is sounding the alarm on how coming federal cuts may impact services at a Kalamazoo hospital.
The union will hold an event to highlight this issue at Kalamazoo’s Bronson Park on Saturday.
Jamie Brown is a nurse at Beacon Kalamazoo, and the president of National Nurses United, which is touring the nation protesting federal cuts to Medicare and Medicaid approved by Congress last year.
Brown said Beacon Kalamazoo receives more than half of its net patient revenue from these two government programs. She added, this loss may lead to the hospital cutting services like those for mental health.
“With the cuts coming to health care, mental health services are also getting cut because a lot of people can't afford mental health care and there's going to be less beds available to place patients that need the extra help," she said.
Cindy Evans is a nurse in Beacon Kalamazoo’s emergency department for mental health patients, known as the behavioral health annex.
She said since more than half of the hospital’s net patient revenue comes from Medicare and Medicaid, cuts to the program may lead to the closure of the emergency psych unit.
”I have had patients be in my annex for up to six months while they were waiting for long-term placement simply because we didn't have anywhere else for them to go. And it's been really important that I can take care of those people and keep them safe. Otherwise, they would be on the streets.”
Evans added that these patients could be re-directed to the hospital's main ER, but she said this would present its own issues.
"The emergency department is a hard place for people with mental health issues. Sometimes the behavioral health patients can be disruptive which disrupts everyone's care out in the main ER," Evans said.
“People are going to still come to the ER with their mental health concerns. But they may have to sit out in the waiting room and they may have to sit, where there's a lot of commotion out in the main ER, and that can very much lead to increased paranoia for these patients.”
In an email, a Beacon Health System spokesperson said Beacon backed nurses’ efforts to spread awareness about the impact of the cuts.
"Beacon Health System believes in something fundamental: Access to high-quality healthcare is not a privilege, it is a necessity for every individual, every family and every community," the statement read.
"We support our nurses and their efforts to raise awareness about the impact of federal funding changes on hospital sustainability and patient access, particularly for community hospitals serving large segments of our communities who are covered by Medicaid and Medicare."
Among other guests, Democratic Michigan US Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed will speak the event, which will begin at 11am on Saturday.
Michael Symonds reports for WMUK through the Report for America national service program.
