Hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform - Lack of Hospital Emergency Capacity: Will the Administration's Medicaid Regulation Make it Worse --Day Two

Statement

Hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform - Lack of Hospital Emergency Capacity: Will the Administration's Medicaid Regulation Make it Worse --Day Two

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

REP. BETTY MCCOLLUM (D-MN): Mr. Chairman, the report conducted by the committee highlights serious challenges confronting hospital emergency rooms, and crowding is a serious problem. The American College of Emergency Physicians released a report last month that addresses the crowding issue. The report asks what causes crowding, and it responds, and I quote, "Over the years, the reasons for crowding have included seasonal illnesses, visits by the poor and the uninsured who have nowhere else to turn except the safety net provided by emergency departments.

"

This country can continue to expand the capacity emergency rooms to serve as a provider of last resort for the uninsured and the mentally ill, or Congress can work to provide universal health care for all Americans. The choice is ours.

Mr. Chairman, I don't know about the situation in New York, Washington, Chicago, Houston, Denver or Los Angeles. I have never visited an emergency room in any of those cities, so I'll take this report's findings as accurate. But I live in Minnesota, and I need to set the record straight.

First, the report inaccurately states that Minneapolis is hosting the 2008 Republican convention. The convention will take place in St. Paul, Minnesota, my congressional district, with Minneapolis accommodating many of the visitors. This distinction is important, especially for the St. Paul officials, first responders, health care professionals involved in preparing to meet the needs of 40,000 visitors, including the president of the United States and the Republican nominee for president.

Second, the report examines Hennepin County Medical Center, which is an excellent hospital and a Level 1 trauma center located in Minneapolis. In the event of an emergency at the national Republican convention, Regents Hospital in St. Paul, an excellent facility, will be the primary responder, with the hospital examined in the report providing support.

What concerns me about this report is it examines Minneapolis solely as the presence of the national convention, yet it evaluates emergency room capacity on a random day, March 25th, 2008. During the four days in September when the Republicans gather in St. Paul, there will be significant additional resources available to ensure a safe, enjoyable convention. There will also be an emergency plan and considerable assets in place to respond to any foreseen events. The Department of Homeland Security designated the national party conventions as a national special security event. This Congress appropriated $50 million to each host city to ensure coordination is seamless between Homeland Security, Secret Service, local and state law enforcement and their first responders.

Finally, while I fully understand the use of Madrid terrorist attacks as the standard for assessing casualty preparedness, real American tragedies like Oklahoma City bombing, Hurricane Katrina, Virginia Tech shooting could also have been used as models. In the Twin Cities, we don't need to investigate emergency room capacity using a telephone survey. Our first responders were forced to respond to an emergency in real time.

Only nine months ago, on August 1st, 2007, 6:05, during rush hour, eight lanes of traffic on Interstate 35W, the bridge -- it collapsed into the Mississippi River. That night, 13 people died, many my constituents, and more than 110 patients required emergency and medical attention. The bridge collapsed due to structural failure. It just as easily could have been the result of a terrorist attack, but the disaster tested the very hospital in the committee's report. Hennepin County Medical Center and hospitals from the entire Twin Cities metropolitan area responded heroically, professionally and efficiently. Their response was not a simulation or a blind phone survey. It was real. People are alive today because of that response.

Mr. Chairman, I have statements from Hennepin County Medical center, Regents Medical Center, St. Paul's chief of police, the Minnesota Hospital Association, and there are more to come that I will submit to the record later. And I would like to have the committee's permission to enter these into the committee report.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source