Lawmakers introduce Health Care Heroes and Public Health Preparedness Act
Hospital leaders and state lawmakers held a press conference Thursday to discuss the PA Heroes Act, which would provide $650 million in funding to support grants for the hospital community to address some of the urgent needs that arose as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This is something we absolutely have to do to correct a problem and to literally give a lifeline to our hospitals,” said state Sen. Camera Bartolotta, R-46th District, the prime sponsor of the Senate bill.
The House bill is co-sponsored by representatives Greg Rothman, R-Cumberland, and Stephen Kinsey, D-Philadelphia.
The funding that lawmakers are earmarking for the Heroes Act is a portion of the $7.2 billion Pennsylvania will receive as part of the federal American Rescue Plan.
The act will enable the commonwealth’s rural, urban and suburban hospitals and health systems to create and implement programs that address the specific needs – including meeting the mental health needs and restoring the health care workforce – of the communities they serve.
The bill is supported by the Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania.
Lou Panza, president and CEO of Monongahela Valley Hospital, said the funding will especially benefit rural and community hospitals, who were financially impacted by declining revenues that occurred when elective surgeries were suspended, and increasing expenses created by the pandemic.
“This is a tremendous help to us. This will provide a lifeline to make us better prepared to get through the next pandemic, the next serious health-care crisis in our community,” said Panza.
Throughout the pandemic, Mon Valley Hospital pivoted to address the needs that arose, such as redirecting resources and staffing, adding temporary negative pressure rooms, purchasing additional medical equipment, including ventilators, and boosting supplies of hard-to-get PPE.
Panza said the hospital could use the funding to add permanent negative pressure rooms and increase its PPE inventory and to meet COVID-19 testing and vaccination needs to reach its rural and under-served communities. “We’ve all learned that just-in-time inventory doesn’t work in hospitals anymore because when the pandemic hit, none of us could get PPE supplies,” he said.
In the nearly 14 months since the pandemic began, there have been more than 1.1 million COVID-19 cases in Pennsylvania, and more than 26,445 Pennsylvanians have died from it.
The disruption in mental health services and community social supports has especially impacted people with mental illness, addiction and intellectual disabilities, said Dr. Erika Saunders, chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health at Penn State University.
Hospitals and health-care systems in rural areas could use the funding to purchase equipment and software to implement tele-psychiatry programs or recruit, train and retain behavioral health providers and psychiatrists, Saunders suggested.
The pandemic also has taken a mental toll on frontline health-care workers and the funding could be used to implement health support, wellness, and resiliency programs.
“The amount of stress that hospital staffs have gone through in the last 12 months is incredible,” said Panza.
At a National Nurses Day breakfast held at the hospital earlier in the day, nurses shared some of their experiences throughout the pandemic.
“I heard stories this morning of nurses who worked with ministers to provide the Sacrament of the Sick to patients through a glass in an ICU while holding a phone up to the patient so their family members could be a part of that,” said Panza.
Bartolotta said the long-term health of the more than 1.4 million Pennsylvanians who live in rural areas, including Southwestern Pennsylvania, depends on local community hospitals.
She noted that nearly half of the commonwealth’s rural hospitals operated in negative margins in 2019, before the pandemic.
The state Department of Health has warned many of those facilities are in danger of closing.
“Throughout the COVID-19 crisis, I saw my local hospitals take a leadership role in testing, treating and vaccinating our communities,” said Bartolotta. “These generational organizations have adapted time and time again, writing yet another chapter of their important story that began long before the pandemic, and must continue for years to come. In recognition of the essential role that rural hospitals play in meeting the health-care needs of many Pennsylvanians, I’m proud to sponsor the PA Heroes Act in the Senate. Our hospitals always put us first, and now its time to ensure that they have the tools they need to continue to serve us.”