May 12 2008
Does Valpo Really Need Two Hospitals?
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Plans are afoot to bring two brand new hospitals to Valparaiso. One to replace the current Porter hospital, poorly located in downtown Valparaiso and relocate it further north towards Chesterton. The second one will be a private hospital located in a new business park north of Valpo.
Well, the question needs to asked. Does Valparaiso need two new hospitals?
The short answer is yes. I was skeptical at first, but the current main hospital located in downtown is old, overcrowded and poorly run.
What worries me though, is that they’re building both these places outside of the core Valpo area. Wouldn’t it be wiser to build something closer to the main population center? Many argue that locating the future hospital at US 6 and 49 will make it centrally located for the rest of the county. While that may be true, people who live south and west of Valpo will be left out of benefitting from this. It takes minutes to save a life and minutes to take it away and these people will be much further away from the hospital.
It’s not quite known what will happen to old hospital yet. There was talk of Valpaiso University taking it over and using it for it’s nursing school, perhaps starting a medical school. Whatever they end up doing with it, it would be wise to keep the emergency room open.
The new hospitals are still many years away. Ideally, competition will be good for both hospitals.
The growth of these hospitals still ignores a key problem with healthcare in Northwest Indiana. There still isn’t a Trauma Center and there are no plans for one anytime in the future. For the most dire of emergencies, we have to rely on Chicago.
