TULSA, Okla. — The state of Oklahoma secured over $223 million in federal funding for rural health, but there's still a number of unanswered questions.
2 News has followed this story for months, specifically in July when a projected $7 billion in cuts were announced.
"They would potentially die," Denise Webber, the CEO of Stillwater Medical Center said when asked about the impact those cuts would make on small towns. "Minutes matter when it comes to saving someone's life."
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Now, funding for rural health aims to soften some of that blow, but it won't get rid of the overall issue.
"It's important to note that this money will not replace the $6.7 billion that hospitals are being cut already," Rich Rasmussen, CEO of the Oklahoma Hospital Association said. "But this is some seed corn that will hopefully be planted that we can use to kind of mitigate some of the impact of those cuts."
Rasmussen and his team played a key role in securing that funding. He tells 2 News the money should go towards a number of different elements.
"Hopefully that will be used to sustain rural health delivery," Rasmussen said. "Part of that will be hospitals. Part of it will be supporting the workforce. Part of it will be looking at new innovations that may not be available in rural communities."
Wagoner Community Hospital serves one of those rural communities. Jimmy Leopard, CEO of the facility, tells 2 News it's too early to know the specific amount of money his organization would get, but that they DO expect to get some. He says that money would go towards a number of things, like an expansion of virtual care options, chronic disease prevention and management, and healthcare talent recruitment.
Rasmussen says this is just the first year of that five year grant, and that we as a state have to compete every year for funding.
"If we don't deliver on what we put into our grant, we may not be funded next year, or we might be funded at a much lower level," Rasmussen said. "So we're going to have to show continuous improvement over the next 5 years."
Rasmussen says the hope would be that these dollars can act as a form of financial stability over the next few years, adding Oklahoma closed two hospitals in 2025 and they don't want that happening again.
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