Most Americans consider access to medical care a necessity, not a luxury. Yet, in rural regions, such access has become increasingly sparse. Between 2010 and 2021, the American Hospital Association that there were 136 rural hospital closures around the country.
This year, could shutter their doors and services. And there is no sign that closures will slow down so long as rural and rural populations continue to shrink. In rural Alabama, the closures are already having a significant impact.
Women lack easy access to quality , which necessitates driving long distances to deliver their babies. Those who experience medical emergencies to find doctors and nurses or necessary diagnostic services. Even are difficult to come by.
This problem isn’t new. In fact, for Black Alabamians, they date back to segregation, when few facilities were open to them. In 1965, in Selma, Ala.
, for instance, there were two prominent segregated hospitals. One admitted no Black people, and the other only had “13 beds reserved for Negroes.” These conditions prompted a congressional investigation, after which Connecticut Senator Thomas J.
Dodd concluded that “the fact that a man can be denied the care of a doctor or the services of a hospital on the basis of his race” was perhaps the most significant civil rights issue. Yet, there remained a beacon of hope—what the called “a symbol of love and devotion to mankind”: Good Samaritan Hospital. Its history, however, spotlights the value of rural .