Doctors Want Emergency Room Kept Open

Reversing a December vote, physicians at Paradise Valley Hospital have voted to recommend that the hospital’s emergency room be kept open.

The decision ended a crisis that began last year when specialty physicians began declining to be on call for the emergency room, because 60% of its patients cannot afford to pay their medical bills.

By last fall, the emergency department at the National City hospital regularly had no doctors on call to provide special services, such as neurosurgery, that emergency doctors cannot provide. Then, in December, physicians voted to recommend that the emergency room be closed within five months.

“It’s a recommitment by the medical staff to the hospital and the community,” said Dr. Richard L. Stennes, emergency room medical director.

Stennes said the hospital administration has agreed to begin reimbursing general, orthopedic, plastic and neurosurgeons for any totally unreimbursed care they provide. About 4% of the hospital’s patients fall in that category, he said. Physicians have also agreed to refer elective surgery to doctors who have agreed to be on call for emergencies.