The Hospital Situation...A Personal Perspective...

A store house of articles, facts and discussions related to the loss of Lakewood Hospital, LHA, LHF.

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Gary Rice
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Location: Lakewood

The Hospital Situation...A Personal Perspective...

Postby Gary Rice » Thu Jan 29, 2015 9:10 am

Good Friends in Lakewoodland,

Caring for my dear late father, you might imagine that my family has had a great deal of experience with both Lakewood, and Fairview hospitals in the Cleveland Clinic system.

Our experiences with both places have generally been very good experiences. Dad even wrote two songs for Fairview Hospital after his life was saved there a year and a half ago. His medical procedure helped to buy us more time to be together and enjoy each other.

Dad and I were able to compare Lakewood and Fairview from the perspective of people who receive services at the ground level, so we often talked about the two places and what's been going on with them.

Starting with the ER, while both places have served us well, there's no doubt that Fairview's new ER is beautiful and HUGE, with many MANY private rooms. In Lakewood's ER, we sometimes had to endure dark, curtained-off areas that no-doubt reminded Dad of some of the hospitals that he played trumpet for in WWII.

While care in both facilities was generally exemplary for us, Fairview is just so modern, well-lit, and pleasant. Lakewood, while often updated, is just, well, Lakewood. In a way, it's like some of the old schools that Lakewoodites grew used to. Those dark, weird, rabbit warren-like hallways of Lakewood High never bothered us, right? But then, you saw some of the modern schools, and then you realized just how retro-stuck-in-time we had become.

Lakewood Hospital is just an old hospital. It has served us well, but like old Lakewood High, it is showing its age.

It's apparent to me that the Cleveland Clinic does not see itself as a grouping of stand-alone hospitals, but rather, a comprehensive system of complementary services. Financially, in this day and age, replicating every medical service in every local hospital would be prohibitively expensive. We went to Lakewood for services that they offered, and to Fairview for the services they offered. That worked fine for us, but at the same time comparitively, it was apparent to us years ago that Lakewood was fast becoming a hospital of the past.

When medicine was simpler, the place worked.

But seriously, take a good second look at the place. Time is passing it by, UNLESS creative minds get real busy, real quickly.

Don't get me wrong however. I would LOVE to see Lakewood Hospital continue. What the MetroHealth system did with Deaconess Hospital is a great example to me of keeping an urban hospital alive with a relevant footprint.

I believe that it would be very much in the Cleveland Clinic's interest to keep Lakewood as that kind of a hospital, but obviously, the hospital will likely need to become a more streamlined place with more specialized services. (and that looks to me pretty much what they've been doing there) Glad at least, that they plan to continue an ER situation in that location.

There are many unanswered questions about this whole hospital controversy. Hopefully as more information comes to light, this will all begin to sort out.

All just my opinion, and I may be wrong, but hopefully not too often.

Back to the banjo...


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Jim O'Bryan
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Re: The Hospital Situation...A Personal Perspective...

Postby Jim O'Bryan » Fri Jan 30, 2015 1:50 pm

Gary

Nice piece as usual.

.


Jim O'Bryan
Lakewood Resident

"The very act of observing disturbs the system."
Werner Heisenberg

"If anything I've said seems useful to you, I'm glad.
If not, don't worry. Just forget about it."
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