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Show "EDITORIAL TAKE A LOOK AT YOUR HOME TOWN HOSPITAL by John Maxey, Administrator Milford Valley Memorial Hospital joins 7,000 other hospitals across the country this week in observing National Hospital Week (May 11-17). Once a year hospitals throughout the nation observe National Hospital Hos-pital Week In an effort to create a public awareness of the hospitals' role In the community. com-munity. All too often, large segments of the gen -eral public think of hospitals only when they need them. Who of us, when we are sick, doesn't want the best care that our money can buy? When we're sick, the problem and concern become both real and immediate. However, in a larger sense, the hospital Is a true community Institution and community com-munity resource. It doesn't just appear out of nowhere, and its concerns are as much with keeping people well as with restoring health. Not only Is health care taking new preventive directions today, but the hospital Is more and more becoming the very center of the communities ' health. By working to develop new methods of delivering appropriate appro-priate quality care, establishing patient and community education programs, quality assurance as-surance mechanisms and cost containment techniques, the hospital and Its medical staff are trying to make sure that when you are sick you can get the right kind of care at a reasonable cost. Often in our busy everyday, lives, we don't pay much attention to just what kind of services our hospital and physicians provide pro-vide or the problems they face. That's probably prob-ably natural; after all, we have more pressing press-ing and Immediate concerns when we are well. Unfortunately, the government has failed to pay much attention themselves and have initiated programs to see that residents resi-dents are provided with services before attempting to find out if the service is already al-ready being provided. A good example of this was the assembly for the High School students last week put on by the FCAG. By no means do I imply that our students were rude or disrespectful, but let's face it, it's hard to concentrate on repeats that have been hammered into your head for the past year. Duplication of effort, you say? I don't think so, I call it stupidly duplicating expenses! ex-penses! A hospital, like an individual, builds its life on relationships. The hospital's goal of quality health care is not a vague Ideal existing apart from the people who might need its services. Milford Valley Memorial Hospital and its physicians have expressed concern for the community by responding to your health care nees by growing, developing, evolving evolv-ing far beyond its Initial designation as a "center for dying". Today the hospital is a center for life. It's a center for you as an individual, who may need the care provided there, and beyond this, it's a center for bolstering the social and economic life of the community itself. The social and economic well being of our community is dependent on the health of our residents. By helping to keep us wel 1 and helping us to recover when we are sick, the hospital contributes significantly to the economic health of our community. During National Hospital Week, we urge you to take another look at your hospital and to learn more about the full range of health care services that are available throughout the community. Take a few minutes min-utes to find out how closely the hospital is related to our community life. You can thus show your concern for the continuing development de-velopment of a healthy community. |