Trillbilly Worker's Party - Bonus Episode: Voices from the Frontlines of a Rural Healthcare Crisis

Episode Date: September 17, 2019

Our very own Tanya Bernice Turner went down to Kingsport, Tennessee, to speak with community members protesting the closure of a neonatal intensive care unit, or NICU, at privately-owned Holston Valley Medical Center. The protest has been going on for over 140 days with little-to-no media coverage, and so we thought it was something you all should know about. This interview features @danithepoet who you can follow for updates. As Dani explains, "The reason this matters is we are the test case for rural America. They intend to roll this out everywhere across the country. And it should scare you that a healthcare corporation and a couple of politicians can make some laws that tie the hands of the federal government." For more information: https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/health/2019/06/23/ballad-health-merger-rural-hospital-closures/1342608001/

Hi, welcome to this bonus episode of Tribally Workers Party. I'm Tanya and I was recently able to visit a group of incredible women entering nearly 140 days of peaceful 24-7 protest outside their only medical center in Kingsport, Tennessee. Ballot Health, after a merger, announced cuts to their NICU, servicing sick babies, and downgrades to their trauma center. These women have since collected 27,000 signatures from the rural communities that Holston Valley Medical Center services to petition that decision. I'm excited for you to hear from these women. I also dropped in some music from the high women. Enjoy! I also dropped in some music from the High Women. Enjoy. The Tennessee Department of Health approved the closure of the Halston Valley Medical Center NICU. Despite all the evidence that shows they shouldn't do so.

So my name is Dani Cook, D-A-N-I Cook, so like a boy, but I'm not. And I am originally from Bristol, Tennessee. In August of 2017, my youngest daughter, who lives in Bristol with her husband and my oldest grandson and my mom, they all still live there, she was pregnant and was due November 11th, 2017. And I got a phone call on August 9th around one o'clock in the afternoon. And she said, Hey mom, they're putting me in the hospital. And I was like, when? And she was like, right now there's something wrong. And so I left Atlanta, Georgia and I was in the Holston Valley Medical Center parking lot at 6 p.m. And two days later, my granddaughter Bella was born at just 26 weeks on August 11th,

weighing one pound and three ounces. She spent 91 days in the NICU. At the time that Bella was born, we could see through her skin. We could see her heartbeat. We weren't allowed to, we weren't allowed to rub her or anything. If we got to touch her, we had to like pet like this because her skin would tear. Her lungs were severely underdeveloped. Her digestive system wouldn't work really well. And that was like another thing that we faced was if they gave her the medication to close the hole in her heart, it's really tough on the digestive system and they needed her to gain weight. So we had to wait for that treatment for a while, but they did end up giving it to her.

And she did two rounds of that. She's amazing now. She just turned two and is doing phenomenal. So we're extremely grateful. November 13th was Bella's one-year anniversary from being discharged from Halston Valley. And so November 14th, I got up and I put a post up with her picture when they still had her in a bag coming out of the OR, and then her picture of them right then, of her right then. And then I tagged all the nurses that I was Facebook friends with, and I just said,

there are these amazing group of people, and we're so grateful, and it's Bella's anniversary. And that was the exact day Ballot Health announced they were going to close that NICU. And I said, holy hell, I don't think so. I'm going to scream from the top of my lungs. So I jumped on Facebook Live, and I said, this is what happens when you put people, profits over people, in this case babies. And I don't know, 8,000,000 views later and whatever. And then I tweeted with Alan Levine a little bit and thought, who is this guy who thinks he can talk to me this way? So then I started researching who he is and how this happened. And then I found out about Rusty Crow and a bunch of laws. And I was like, holy hell, this is not okay. And so the

protest and the opposition against ballot health started immediately as soon as these changes were announced almost 10 months ago. The peaceful protest outside started May 2nd. And it started because the folks around here, they did show up. And here's what we thought. In November and December and January, we attended board of supervisors meetings and county commissioner meetings and board of mayor and alderman meetings. And we simply thought, naively, that if people became aware and surely the state doesn't know everything that's happening here or they wouldn't allow this, they'll fix it. Here's what happened. So, Wellmont Health System and Mountain States Health Alliance merged together, two huge health systems, and created a medical monopoly, which had they just tried to do that in a regular merger or hands of the FTC. So, and there's two major players on the Tennessee and Virginia side. So, on the Tennessee side, it would be Senator Rusty Crowe. He is both the chair of the Health and Welfare

Committee. He is also a contracted employee of Ballard Health. And so you have the senator in the General Assembly who's the chair of the Health and Welfare Committee sponsoring and passing legislation for the health care company that he gets paid by, that he receives income by. And that legislation is tying the hands of the federal government, creating a legal medical monopoly, and then restricts a lot of the access to the information that most people, most constituents and patients would deserve to have access to and to have knowledge of. On the Virginia side, you can thank good old Terry Kilgore. He's your boy in Southwest Virginia. So I cannot wait for the next election when somebody can dust off their heels and

come on out to the race. Um, I'm sure Terry's not fond of me because when he, I don't know, the dog ate his, his submission for his paperwork to be on the ballot, you know, whatever he says happened to it. It's, it's in the mail. Um, I was on Facebook live going Southwest Virginia, call the election committee and don't let them, don't let them put him on the ballot and Make him work for it. Let him be a write-in candidate. But they put him on anyway, which I figured they would. So all of that is, you know, a little bit

of history and how we got here. But today I did get an email from the FTC, which we went to their workshop. They had a COPPA workshop, which is the piece of legislation that governs ballot health. And so about 15 of us drove up to Washington, D.C. We went to the FTC workshop. We met with myself and Commissioner Angie Stanley, met with six members of the United States Congress. We delivered to them in-person 23,000 at that time signatures. I have them here so you can take a peek at them. And now we're at approximately 27,000. Wow, that's amazing. Will you just tell us, you know, quickly, just the broad strokes of what the action has been, the peaceful protests that

have been happening, what that has looked like, and who's been leading that? Sure. So the protest and the opposition against ballot health started immediately as soon as these changes were announced almost 10 months ago. The peaceful protest outside started May 2nd. And it started because the folks around here, they did show up. And here's what we thought. In November and December and January, we attended Board of Supervisors meetings and County Commissioner meetings and Board of Mayor and Aldermen meetings. And we simply thought, naively, that if if people became aware and surely the state doesn't know everything that's happening here or they wouldn't allow this they'll fix it and we rallied together there's an annual hearing that has to happen as part of the copa law where the community can come together and they speak in

front of the local copa advisory council so we to get, they had to rebook a room and reschedule it because they had a room for 50 people. And we had 450 people show up. So they had to book a different room. And so that happened February 7th. And physicians spoke and surgeons spoke. And we thought surely that was going to be it. And it wasn't. So on May 1st, the Tennessee Department of Health approved the closure of the Halston Valley Medical Center NICU,

despite all the evidence that shows they shouldn't do so, which I don't know why that surprised me, because the FTC and every independent expert said, don't give these folks a COPA, and they did anyway. So when they did that on May 1st, I thought, okay, so emails aren't working. Phone calls aren't working. You know, all the things that they tell you to do. Contact your legislators. We did all of that repeatedly. I went to Nashville, okay?

So I was like, all right, so the only thing I know to do is the most American thing I can think of, which is to protest. So I did. I packed two backpacks, a sleeping bag. I told my mom first and said, it's going to be okay. And then I told like two friends of mine, including two NICU nurses who I love very dearly. And on May 2nd, I got up and drove over to Holston Valley. And I sat down beside a stop sign with a few signs that I had made with statistics about our drug exposed babies and our infant mortality rates and why we need to be taking care of our babies it just it boggles my mind that we profess to be such a pro-life state and pro-life community and yet

it's like oh well we're only pro-life while you're in the room and once you get here sucker you're on your own and so what I keep telling people is you can't be pro-life and pro- in the room and once you get here sucker you're on your own and so what I keep telling people is you can't be pro-life and pro-ballad it doesn't work for me and so now we've been out here 819 days 24 hours a day how many people do you think overall have come out and sat with you all overall it's hard to say because people come and go, but several hundred over the course of that 119 days. We have a core group of around 50 people, which might not sound like a lot, but 50 people for 119 days rotate shifts and do what needs to be done and make sure that things are covered so that we always have people there. No one is ever there alone. We always keep at least two people.

We have our night watchmen. We have some dedicated folks who come out between 1130 at night and 6 in the morning, and they stay up all night so that Michelle, Kathy, and I can sleep. My name is Kathy Christian. I live in Churchill, Tennessee, which is about 15 to 17 minutes from Kingsport. I am a mother and a grandmother. I'm also a Red Cross disaster response team member, and I had gone to a fire. They had called me out at 3 a.m., and I got home about 6.30-ish. They had called me out at 3 a.m., and I got home about 6.30-ish.

And, you know, you've got to wind down. And so I got on Facebook, and I saw Danny, and she said, I'm out here, and I'm not leaving until they talk to me. And so I'm also a Jesus freak. And so that small, still voice said, that's where you need to be. Now, I didn't think that meant that I would be going there and not leaving. So I've been out there. Today is the 119th day, and I have not slept in my own bed in 118 days. I work at the Churchill Medical Mission, which is virtually a free clinic.

There's a $10 charge, but we waive that if they don't have it. And so Monday through Thursday, I get up, I go home, take a shower, go to work, and then get back to the protest about 5-ish. I stop by the house and try to grab some clean clothes and come back up. by the house and try to grab some clean clothes and come back up. We've just become family in my term for all of my friends out there or my battle buddies. We, of course, when you become family, you know, you snap at each other a little bit. So we've had a couple of little, you ate my chocolate kind of moments. But, you know, we have, we've had people, we've had infants all the way up to people in their 90s.

We have one couple, Earl and Nancy Ferris, who are in their 80s, who come every single day. They get there between 8 and 8 30 a.m. and they stay until 12 to 1 o'clock in the afternoon. Wow. Can you describe a little bit for people who are just learning about this for the first time, as many people are, what all services are at stake? what all services are at stake? Every service. Of course, the two that are in the limelight is the trauma in Kingsport and Bristol being downgraded. And then, but for example, the cancer center at one time was in Allendale, which is between Churchill, where I live, and Kingsport. It was off the hospital campus. And you went, they charge you for your services, and that was it. Now you have to go on campus at Indian Path, and there's a facility fee that most insurances don't cover.

So one of my battle buddies went to do a sleep study, and it was on campus. And she has insurance, a $500 deductible, which has already been met. And they wanted her to pay over a thousand dollars in order to do the sleep study and of course you don't carry a thousand dollars in your pocket to go to a doctor's appointment and they turned her away and they wouldn't do the sleep study because she couldn't pay the over a thousand dollars up front when her insurance will pay for it and has in the past. So that's the kind of things. We are out there day in and day out and we have people that come and talk to us and tell us their stories and it is it's horrendous the stories that we hear. And one of the reasons I'm there is because of my family

and my community and the fact that I love my community and I love my neighbors and I love the people I go to church with and I can do this. It's very upsetting that we've been here 119 days and the only time the local media came out to interview was when the hospital banned Danny and then had to back up and say, oh, oops, she didn't do what we said she did. she didn't do what we said she did. Wow. Yeah. What has the media coverage been like for these 120 days? There is none.

As I said, the only time they've interviewed us is when Ballot Health put out a press release saying that they'd banned Danny from hospital grounds. press release saying that they'd banned Danny from hospital grounds. If you hear something from the media, it is the dribble that comes out of Ballard's mouth. And I know that sounds negative, and I apologize, but, you know, I'm pretty compassionate, pretty passionate about it. You know, Ballard puts out all of these numbers, but they're very selective. They don't give anything except what they want to give, and the local media just eats it up. My name is Angie Stanley. I'm a Sullivan County Commissioner here in Tennessee. It's really as far as a region, how it's going to impact the region here as a whole with the health care system moving a lot of their services to johnson city we got a lot of specialists and stuff you know that are moving we've got other physicians that doesn't have the resources and stuff that they are now asking for to be able to work at the other hospitals.

And they're not being able to work at the hospitals where their services are going to be provided. So therefore, it is forcing them out of town to work now. They're moving away. And as a business owner of 30 years here, my clients, you know, healthcare here is our number one employer. So whenever we have a decrease in that, it affects a lot of the small businesses and stuff here. Could you just say a little bit about the range of services that are at risk? The NICU is at risk. Sullivan County is ranked very high in the opioid abuse here with the NOS babies.

And Southwest Virginia, down in Hawkins County, Hancock. It's very, very troubling that we're going to lose babies in this merger with them switching all of the services to Johnson City. The trauma we get, I've been down at the protest sometimes, and there's been four or five flights come in a night where we've had traumas down in Hawkins County and stuff, southwest Virginia. And the doctors will sit there and tell you that this person would not have made it if we had to fly them to Johnson City.

that this person would not have made it if we had to fly them to Johnson City. And another concern is they're wanting to fly them to the closest hospital and then get them stabilized. Once they're stabilized, then fly them back to Johnson City. There ain't nobody that can afford that. The reason why this matters is we are the test case for health care in rural America. They intend to roll this out everywhere across the country. And it should scare you that a health care corporation and a couple of politicians can make some laws that tie the hands of the federal government, strip away some of your basic rights, and pretty much reduce health care to whatever they think you ought to have. That's just not America.

And I believe that people are powerful, and I think the most powerful thing you can do with people is get them to believe in the possibility. And I believe that we have the possibility to become the country we've always been told we are. You can hold my hand When you need to let go I can be a mountain When you're feeling valley low I can be a streetlight

Showing you the way home You can hold my hand When you need to let go