Rural US town outraged as only hospital forced to shut: 'I would have died without it'

[douglas9]

For the better part of a century, Glenn Medical center dealt with all kinds of injuries, ailments and emergencies in the far northern reaches of California’s Sacramento valley – heart attacks, car collisions and even plane crashes.

The only hospital in this agricultural county, not far from the rice fields and almond orchards, many of the area’s 28,000 residents have a story about how the hospital saved them, or a loved one, said Lauren Still, the medical center’s chief administrative officer.

But at 7pm on 30 September the hospital closed after 75 years.

Glenn Medical center could not keep its doors open after the federal government moved this year to eliminate its critical access designation, a special status for hospitals that helps ensure access to emergency health care in rural communities, officials said.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) determined that the hospital no longer met the distance requirement for the designation – critical access facilities must be more than 35 miles from the nearest hospital.

The decision means that tens of thousands of people will have to travel more than 30 miles for emergency medical care, driving on sometimes winding country roads, behind the tractors and heavy equipment used in area agriculture or, if they’re lucky, in one of the county’s two ambulances.

“It’s a tragedy that you’re gonna leave 30,000 people without readily access to an emergency room,” said Rick Thomas, the vice-mayor of Willows, the Glenn county city where the hospital is located.


https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/oct/07/rural-us-town-outraged-as-only-hospital-forced-to-shut-i-would-have-died-without-it