CoxHealth Archives - Missourinet

New $42 million hospital opens Friday in southern Missouri; rural residents urged to support local hospitals (AUDIO)

January 21, 2021 By Brian Hauswirth

A ceremony is scheduled for Friday evening in southwest Missouri’s Monett for a new state-of-the-art $42 million hospital. Monett, which has about 9,000 residents, is located between Joplin and Springfield.

A drone photo above the new Cox Monett hospital in southwest Missouri (December 2020 photo courtesy of Springfield-based CoxHealth)

Springfield-based CoxHealth broke ground on the facility in 2019, and it’s taken about two years to finish. Cox Monett President Darren Bass is grateful to be part of the CoxHealth system, noting other rural Missouri hospitals have closed.

“That really affords us the ability to streamline and centralize and have a lot of the nonpatient function areas covered by a system,” Bass says.

Bass says being part of a system allows the Monett hospital to focus their revenues on infrastructure, growth and on employee retention.

The Missouri Hospital Association (MHA) says ten rural Missouri hospitals have closed, since 2014. The new 70-thousand square foot Monett hospital will replace the current facility, which opened in 1953.

Bass says patient transition to the new hospital will begin Friday at 6 p.m.

“We’ll actually open our emergency department in our new hospital at 6 pm and we will maintain the emergency department at our old hospital until the last patient is moved out,” says Bass.

COVID-19 patients will be the last to move, and Bass says they’re working closely with the local ambulance district. CoxHealth says the new facility is part of their mission to ensure that rural Missourians have access to health care, especially critical, time-sensitive situations.

Mr. Bass tells Missourinet that rural health care is critical. He’s urging rural Missourians across the state to support their local hospitals and health care providers.

“Just be thinking about what happens if you’re not using your local health care services, your neighbor probably isn’t either. And there’s only so long that that hospital or health system can manage if they don’t have the volume coming in the doors to stay afloat,” Bass says.

Friday’s ceremonies will start at about 5 p.m. There will also be a moment of silence for the current hospital.

Click here to listen to Brian Hauswirth’s interview with Cox Monett President Darren Bass, which was recorded on January 20, 2021:

Missouri’s largest hospitals feeling COVID-19 strain from rural areas

October 30, 2020 By Alisa Nelson

Some of Missouri’s largest hospitals are getting an increased number of COVID-19 patients from rural communities. During a briefing Thursday in Springfield, Gov. Mike Parson says he met with CoxHealth in Springfield to talk about some of the challenges the southwest Missouri hospital is facing.

Gov. Mike Parson

“Areas like Springfield are seeing a lot of patients transferred in from smaller hospitals and surrounding communities – putting additional stress on systems like Cox,” says Parson. “During our meeting, we talked about empowering rural hospitals and equipping them with the tools to care for more COVID-19 patients, which would help relieve some of the stress on our largest hospitals. We are looking into ways that we might do this.”

According to Kansas City Public Radio, Kansas City area hospital leaders say admissions there are reaching near all-time highs because of patients coming from rural areas. In the past two weeks, some hospitals in that region have had to stop accepting ambulances and patient transfers from other places for periods of time due to capacity problems.

A Kansas City area hospital nurse says many rural area COVID-19 patients are arriving in critical condition because they did not receive adequate treatment early on in their community. Around 68% of Missouri counties lack intensive care units. Many rural counties don’t even have a hospital, let alone an ICU.

KCUR says Missouri has the eighth highest number of hospitalized patients in the country. About 1,500 individuals with the virus are being treated in a Missouri hospital.

According to the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Service’s COVID-19 dashboard, Northwest Missouri’s remaining hospital bed capacity is at 28%. As for the Kansas City region, the state says it has about 39% of its beds available. The number of intensive care unit beds available statewide ranges from 28% to 41%, state data says.

Missouri congressman: COVID-19 has been devastating for businesses and American workers (AUDIO)

April 23, 2020 By Brian Hauswirth

A southwest Missouri congressman who serves on the House Energy and Commerce Committee has been chosen by President Donald Trump to serve on the President’s task force on reopening the economy.

U.S. Rep. Billy Long, R-Springfield, represents southwest Missouri on Capitol Hill (official photo courtesy of Congressman Long’s Washington office)

U.S. Rep. Billy Long, R-Springfield, emphasizes that it’s a bipartisan task force.

“There’s some Democrats on there and it’s really interesting to hear them on our conference calls, bragging on the president, telling him what a good job he’s doing, and then the rest of the year they don’t have such kind things to say about him,” Long says.

Long is confident we can protect our citizens, “without crushing our economy.”

“Folks are ready to get back to work. They want to open up the stores and go out and get a haircut and get their dog groomed and go out to dinner and sit down and have a nice meal,” says Long. “And the people that work in those places are more than ready to get back to work.”

Long says COVID-19 has had a devastating impact on American businesses and workers.

Springfield health officials say there have been 93 confirmed COVID-19 cases in Springfield and Greene County, including eight deaths. 35 are active cases, and 50 have recovered.

Congressman Long tells Missourinet that three weeks ago, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was considering building temporary hospitals for coronavirus, in his district.

“And as of the night before last, there was a total of six COVID patients in hospital beds in the 7th (congressional) District,” Long says.

He says five of those patients are in Springfield, and one is hospitalized in Joplin. Long’s district includes Springfield, Branson, Joplin and Republic.

Long also says Springfield’s Cox Hospital completely converted an empty floor for COVID-19 patients, and that it has not been used. He praises CoxHealth’s preparation.

He also says rural hospitals have been hurting financially, because they haven’t been able to perform elective surgeries.

Long voted for the bipartisan COVID-19 legislation on Capitol Hill on Thursday, which contains $75 billion for personal protective equipment for health care employees and another $25 billion to expand testing.

Instead of flying to the nation’s capitol, he rode in a vehicle with U.S. Rep. Jason Smith, R-Salem, who met Congressman Long on Wednesday morning in Rolla. Smith drove the vehicle, and they arrived in Washington D.C. late Wednesday night.

State health officials say there are now 6,321 confirmed coronavirus cases in Missouri, along with 218 deaths. The state Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) announced the latest statistics Thursday afternoon. The number of deaths has increased by ten, from Wednesday’s number of 208 deaths.

Click here to listen to the full five-minute interview between Missourinet’s Brian Hauswirth and U.S. Rep. Billy Long, R-Springfield, which was recorded on April 22, 2020: