With new industries and plants, from nuclear energy to an ethane cracker and polyethylene plant, looking to build in Calhoun County and bring new jobs and economic growth to the region, a strong healthcare infrastructure is part of why our region is attracting new businesses.
Calhoun County is home to small mom-and-pop businesses and the largest of multi-national conglomerates. Each one depends on our local hospital for health care when and where their employees and families need it. And it can look very different from person to person.
Consider a plant worker accidentally exposed to a hazardous chemical. He needs medical intervention urgently at a facility with personnel, equipment, and resources to treat his traumatic injury. Memorial Medical Center is a Level IV designated trauma center, has indoor and outdoor decontamination facilities, and regularly practices emergency response drills with our industrial employers.
Consider a plant foreman who has a heart attack on the floor. With trauma response close by and local personnel trained to stabilize patients having a heart attack so they have an increased chance of survival when they get to a higher level-of-care facility, the foreman is more likely to survive the event and can get follow-up cardiac rehab in town to reduce the risk of another cardiac event.
Consider a student athlete with an injury requiring regular physical therapy to rebuild strength and function. He needs PT for an hour a day, three days a week for 12 weeks. If it weren’t available at Memorial Medical Center, he’d have to miss class and a parent would have to miss work so he can get to Victoria, adding significant burden in travel time and lost productivity and increasing the likelihood he misses appointments and slows down healing.
Consider a small business officer manager who needs to take her elderly parent to regular specialists appointments for management of congestive heart failure and diabetes. She can come to Memorial Medical Center here in town and be back to work in less than 90 minutes. Without local access, she would have to take almost a half day off work to take her parent to Victoria. That could add up to two full days off work over a month.
We often don’t think about having access to medical care until we need it. But employers, large and small, do think about it when deciding if a region or community is right for their business. The outlook for Calhoun County is bright, and with a hospital district, Memorial Medical Center will continue its legacy of making sure our businesses’ employees and families are taken care of. Right here at home.
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