(Day 8 of 30 in 30 challenge!)
Okay, yesterday wasn't such a hot day for me. However, I did get a comment perhaps about how applicable the topic of proximity to health care is for certain buyers. I just happened to remember that I had a friend of my mother-in-law comment that she'd like to live down here near Ann Arbor, just so she "could be close to U of M hospitals" just in case. We DID however, in my immediate area, see that our hometown hospital here in Saline no longer performs in-patient care. But that doesn't mean the world has gone to heck in a handbasket. It just means if they have to stay overnight and get further specialized treatment, it's just an ambulance ride away, usually less than an hour, to be in a hospital such as the University of Michigan hospitals or St. Joseph's. You get patched up and get the bleeding stopped, and they carted over to a facility that can handle everything.
Or in essence, the local hospital is triage and quick-emergency patchups. In my case, the Saline hospital literally SIX minutes from my house, so that was very handy, as it was quicker to drive my mother-in-law there than to wait for help.
Back to the topic. Some folks think it's a great idea being that close to the hospital and moving there to be that close. Ummm...what if you're REALLY sick or injured in your home? Yeah, call 911, but the ambulance or fire truck has to come from SOMEWHERE if you can't get to the hospital on your own power. In that case, I think I'd rather be close to the FIRE STATION!
Well, I do recall some of my medical adventures in the past. For example, I lived in Rochester, Minnesota years ago (in the 1990's) and was employed by IBM. But for any medical help, I went to The Mayo Clinic. Yeah, just even for simple checkups, blood workups, stress tests, etc.... It's just a MUCH bigger version of any standard metropolitan hospital. However, the waiting room lounges are each the size of Gates A47 and A49 at Detroit Metro Airport...WAY huge. From what I've heard, there has always been a contingent of older folks that have intentionally moved to be close to the Mayo Clinic, and indeed after sitting in their massive waiting rooms, I believe it. (Even if you take a air flight to Rochester, expect to take a long time to board as usually at least 10 passengers on each flight seem to require wheelchair assistance....but I may be exaggerating...)
Last of all, I've had a dream of retiring to a RURAL area and I mean WAY rural, such as a cabin on a mountain in south central Colorado. Sounds wonderful, except for the fact that if I should get a heart attack while chopping wood or chasing pikas out of my woodshed, it would literally take a helicopter airflight ride or a 3-hour ambulance round-trip to seek immediate help. Now I've been re-thinking that. If you could move to a remote area, would this be a concern?
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