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What does one consider to be too far from a good or major hospital? If you want to get away from larger cities, live a quiet life in a rural small town of about 2000 people without a hospital, is a 15-20 minute drive too far to a hospital in the next town or a 45 minute drive to a major medical center? Where does one draw the line and find a balance? Does anyone ever consider that some of us may never see a hospital no matter how close it is?
I read somewhere that 60 to 70 percent of seniors die in acute care hospitals after a major medical medical event like stroke or heart attack, about 15 to 20 percent die in nursing homes and the rest just drop dead at some point. So even if you live 5 minutes from a major medical center, once you reach a certain age, there's a good chance they won't prolong your life very much if at all. A coworker of mine just had his grandmother pass away at 62 years old. She dropped dead on her front porch. I think this happens a lot more often than many of us realize.
I'm just throwing this out for opinions.
My opinion is that living a healthy lifestyle including diet and exercise is the best you can do. I mentioned my Father having a stroke at 88 and going to a small town hospital which in retrospect, I believe a mistake as I was completely unimpressed with their "services." The nearest hospital where we eventually took him was about 25 minutes away and I wish we would have taken him there from the beginning but I'm not sure if that would have made any significant difference.
In my personal opinion, I would prefer to be within 15 minutes of a good hospital or closer if possible as I age.
So you're saying that because sudden cardiac arrest can happen, there's no point in being within reasonable distance of a hospital?
Seems like specious reasoning to me. (Specious means "superficially plausible, but actually wrong.")
When I was working at Sun Microsystems (the Menlo Park campus that is now Facebook headquarters), one morning a mass email went out from Security asking people to check to see if any of their team members were missing.
Turned out there was a dead guy in the cafeteria and he had no ID on him. That cafeteria had great French roast. I can think of worse ways to go.
But most of us will be hospitalized for something or another prior to our own exit-stage-right. It would be a courtesy to our loved ones to make sure it is not an onerous trip for them. No disrespect for mlb but living in North Monterey County and having to drive up the valley to Stanford Medical Center or (worse) UCSF through our horrendous traffic is more stress than anyone should have to go through.
I simply asked the question, what is a reasonable distance with other things considered. I do realize some people wouldn't live in a small town if the Mayo clinic was based there. There's no reason to put definitions of words in your reply. If there are any really big words with lots of letters in them that I can't read and are too hard for me to understand, I can look them up my self in a dictionary. Thank you though for being so thoughtful and considerate.
I simply asked the question, what is a reasonable distance with other things considered. I do realize some people wouldn't live in a small town if the Mayo clinic was based there. There's no reason to put definitions of words in your reply. If there are any really big words with lots of letters in them that I can't read and are too hard for me to understand, I can look them up my self in a dictionary. Thank you though for being so thoughtful and considerate.
You prefer me to be blunt when you're wrong. Noted.
You prefer me to be blunt when you're wrong. Noted.
There isn't a right or wrong. I asked a question and asked for opinions since people will have different perspectives. How am I wrong by asking a question people are free to answer with different opinions? Why are you taking this so personal? No matter what your opinion is, there's no need to be condescending in your reply. No one intends for you to live anywhere except somewhere that makes you happy.
I'm letting this go and if anyone else wants to share an opinion, please do.
What does one consider to be too far from a good or major hospital? If you want to get away from larger cities, live a quiet life in a rural small town of about 2000 people without a hospital, is a 15-20 minute drive too far to a hospital in the next town or a 45 minute drive to a major medical center? Where does one draw the line and find a balance? Does anyone ever consider that some of us may never see a hospital no matter how close it is?
I read somewhere that 60 to 70 percent of seniors die in acute care hospitals after a major medical medical event like stroke or heart attack, about 15 to 20 percent die in nursing homes and the rest just drop dead at some point. So even if you live 5 minutes from a major medical center, once you reach a certain age, there's a good chance they won't prolong your life very much if at all. A coworker of mine just had his grandmother pass away at 62 years old. She dropped dead on her front porch. I think this happens a lot more often than many of us realize.
I'm just throwing this out for opinions.
yes and even in big cities, such as San Antonio that has trauma centers and a burn unit, people still have to go to Houston for some cancer treatments.
I live in the medium sized city of Orlando FL (city pop 280,000). One of our two main hospitals is ten minutes away, the other is maybe 20 minutes away.
But that's not why I live where I do. I live here because my one and only grandchild lives here. The fact that medical care is so close by is a nice perk, but it had nothing to do with my decision.
I would love to live in a more remote area than I do, but being single (for me) has limited how far out, or remote I want to be. If I was married, it would be a different story. Currently I have a house on the outskirts of a town of 33K people, with a good hospital about 15 minutes from me. The selection of doctors is limited, and even this size of town, can be frustrating. If my medical needs become more, and I needed to travel often to the "big" city an hour away, then I would sell and move closer to that.
No disrespect for mlb but living in North Monterey County and having to drive up the valley to Stanford Medical Center or (worse) UCSF through our horrendous traffic is more stress than anyone should have to go through.
There were no spine specialists here in Monterey County that were well versed in the fusion technology my spouse needed. And he wanted the best and got the best. It's not something we will rely on for primary medical care.
For Emergencies we will rely on local medical facilities.
We do make certain that appointments are not early in the AM so that we can travel with less traffic. We don't expect that we will have more than a couple more appointments up in Redwood City at their clinic.
Also note that many of the patients at Stanford Medical are not from the area. We were not alone in that.
I think we retired in just the right spot. Fort Worth, close to major freeway system, shopping, food sources.
And last week, when my husband had chest pains, our house was 8 minutes from a large medical center.
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