Ballad Health is a 20 hospital system formed by the merger of Mountain States Health Alliance and Wellmont Health Systems. It is the sole hospital option for over 1 million people living in Southwest Virginia and Eastern Tennessee and patients deserve better.
Focusing on my home state, Ballad Health operates the following hospitals in Virginia:
Dickenson Community Hospital (Clintwood)
Johnston Memorial Hospital (Abingdon)
Lee County Community Hospital (Pennington Gap)
Lonesome Pine Hospital (Big Stone Gap)
Norton Community Hospital (Norton)
Russell County Hospital (Lebanon)
Smyth County Community Hospital (Marion)
The poor healthcare provided by these hospitals starts with their Emergency Departments. In the six years since Ballad was formed, ER visits for patients sick enough to be hospitalized grew more than three times as long and now far exceed the criteria set by state officials. Things are getting worse. In 2022 the median time spent by patients in Ballad’s Emergency Department was 6 hours…it 2023 the delay grew to 7 hours and 45 minutes…the most recent report indicated patients wait that delay has now grown to 10 hours and 45 minutes.
Read a more detailed analysis in Cardinal News.
Delayed care is poor care. People can die just waiting in an Emergency Room. Southwest Virginians deserve better.