What Medicine Looks Like In Rural America: Country Doctor Must-See Movie Shows One Town’s Fight To Save Its Hospital- And Town
What Medicine Looks Like In Rural America: Country Doctor Must-See Movie Shows One Town’s Fight To Save Its Hospital- And Town
Fairfax, Oklahoma: the small town in rural America you’ve probably never heard of. In this tiny town of 2,500 people, there is one doctor to serve them all, and he’s cared for many of them for most of their lives. He also happens to do house calls, and is the only doctor on staff at the nursing home and clinic.
This is a story of what medicine looks like for non-New Yorkers (or just non-metropolitan people in general). Most of our readers have never been to small town rural America. People in the tri-state area have gone to hospitals that are very busy, filled with many doctors, interns, nurses, and other staff members.
This hospital used to have about 20 people working in it. One of the former owners, before one of its previous bankruptcy filings, was taking money illegally out of the hospital – literally out of the staff members’ paychecks, where they went without pay for three months while he enriched himself with their money. These are people who could barely feed their families with their salary being made to work for free while the owner stole the money from the business.
Like Steward Healthcare systems, recently ripped apart verbally by Senator Sanders, this owner wasn’t taking the profits (because there weren’t any). He was taking the money they needed to buy oxygen, medications, vaccines, bandages, and other things patients need when they come to the hospital for care. But like other predatory owners and investment firms, he didn’t care. He is in jail now, but the damage and trauma he caused are still sore wounds for those who are still there.
We follow the doctor from house to house, nursing home to clinic, and then home again. And how do his patients repay him? With much kindness and many hugs – and the fruits of their labor and harvest – literally. He goes home with okra, tomatoes, squash, and other vegetables, because these people have no money and no health insurance. But his warm heart causes him to continue to care for them despite the lack of monetary reward.
Then came 2019. The hospital filed for bankruptcy and went into receivership, where a court appointed arbiter would auction of the business. In this case, they promised that it would be the buyer that was best for the community not just the highest bidder. And it seems that was the case. The buyer of the hospital, a doctor from California, bought the hospital and immediately poured money into it for a new wing and New generators – $8 million.
The funny thing is that when this much love and care was poured into their town through the hospital, everything came back to life. The buildings in town, destroyed by two tornados, were renovated. Everything started to perk up as it were. They even managed to survive Covid – they lost many residents but the hospital is still there caring for the patients.
It’s really a heartwarming story. If you stay in the headlines too much, sometimes it seems like there’s no one good out there. But sometimes there is. This buyer really cared about that small town, and her help has made the town feel cared about again – bringing it back to life. It was pretty amazing to watch.
Other small towns, such as those who were victimized by Stewart described above, have not been so lucky. But it really doesn’t seem to take much. The way to revitalize rural America and give them inspiration is to actually invest in the people on the ground. That could mean buying a hospital, or it could mean giving in kind donations to them. It could also mean adopting a food bank or soup kitchen, either in your own area or across the country. There’s no shortage of food banks that need donations or of people who need the food.
With the expiring ACA credits and soaring insurance costs, these situations are likely to cause more pain in rural areas, but the communities can make a comeback if the conditions are right. This brief film is an inspiration of what could be with moral, ethical people leading the way (like this doctor and the woman who bought this hospital). We need more hometown heroes like them.
It should be mentioned that a large part of this crisis is being driven by what can be called the commoditization of everyday life and everyday goods: a hospital is just its debt to income ratio rather than the people they care for; Red Lobster is just the land the restaurants sit on and the money they can generate; a family home is just the amount that the bank can get for it at auction rather than the family living in it with their hopes and dreams and lives; a forest is just the developments it can be cut down to make way for instead of the value it brings to the community. If instead we saw the people as valuable and changed the way we look at the world and these things, perhaps we could move to a more egalitarian and compassionate society.
You can also learn about holistic medicine using plant-based medicine.
This movie was excellent and I would give it five stars. You’ll learn a lot about an issue that is often talked about but not well understood.
Banner Image: Film poster. Image Credit – HBO
[…] recently, many in the Mennonite community have no money at all. And like the families in The Country Doctor, about a rural Oklahoma doctor who was the only physician serving his whole community, they pay their midwives in trade or barter. […]