Community Voices

What is our community saying about the proposed bond and the need to invest in strong, local healthcare infrastructure for Hunt County?

“The very first question I get as people look at this area is usually, how can I or how can my business, get things done? And one of those is always, health care. Employers are really looking for the opportunity for employees to not have to go to Rockwall or to Rowlett, or McKinney or downtown Dallas. Being able to do everything in one place gives employers the ability to have people come back quickly to work, but it also means that families don’t have to take their kids somewhere else and then come back, take them back to school, and now come back to work.”

– Kevin Sawatsky, broker-owner, Onward Texas Real Estate Providers

“I’ve been prescribed cardiac rehabilitation, and for the last three months, I’ve been able to come to Hunt Regional three days a week for my cardiac rehab just four blocks away from my own home. I’m not having to drive three days a week to Rockwall or Rowlett or somewhere just to get the kind of care I need. It’s very important to keep us close to home for care.”

– Jeff Thomas, retired attorney

“We live in a very competitive environment. Particularly here in Greenville, we compete with the businesses in Dallas and Fort Worth that try to employ the best people. And Greenville has to compete against that in every way. And, to have a good health care system here in Greenville means a great deal. We really need a strong health care system located locally.”

– Dennis Carpenter, Wildcatter Realty

“Quality health care is vital to a vibrant and growing community like ours. Hunt County is currently growing as the fifth fastest growing county in Texas. We’re dealing with a lot of growth and the hospital is certainly a part of that. People wouldn’t be moving to our county if they didn’t have quality health care.”

– Bobby Stovall, Hunt County judge

“The goal is that people can come here and get the services they need, get treated and get to go home. People that have to go to Dallas for services usually postpone that because it’s inconvenient. If you can just come here in the community you get what you need faster and you can prevent more complicated illnesses.”

– Debbie Clack, nurse

 

“We have to make sure we can provide all the services that we can to our residents. We all know how difficult it is to get to the Metroplex or to McKinney.”

– Lee Boles, CEO, Hunt Regional Medical Center

“Any individual or family that moves to this area, the first thing they always look for schools and hospital services, and we have excellent hospital services. The more services we can provide here locally, the better outcomes I think we’ll see.

– Dr. Scott Pierce

“Without the investment in the ER, in the cath lab, in the new linear accelerator for radiation therapy,  you’re going to have to drive to Rockwall or further for treatment. For my patients who need radiation, it’s 45 days. They’re going to have to drive half an hour, 40 minutes just to get their radiation.”

– Dr. Anthony Elisco III

“It’s extremely important to grow with the community. As more and more people move into our community, the need for health care and other services continues to grow exponentially as well. We can’t rely on the big hospitals that are in Dallas. The drive is  not one that anybody enjoys anymore just because of how congested the roads are. If we’re willing to invest in our own community, we don’t need to go anywhere else to get good health care.”

– Sherry Hall, co-owner Prairie Coffee

 

“We need to increase the hospital’s inpatient capacity so that we can get patients from the emergency room to those inpatient beds and we can have more room in the emergency room for patients who are coming in for an emergency because time is of the essence in order to get patients the care they need.”

– Brandi Isham, VP of Quality, Hunt Regional Medical Center

“Health care is top priority, because we’re all going to get older. We’re all going to have to have a hospital at one time or another. I want to make sure my loved ones are taken care of and they have the top notch facilities and equipment that they need because one day we’re all going to be there. We’re all going to have that need.”

– Danny Allembaugh, executive director, Senior Center Resources and Public Transit

“Investing in new technologies in our Cancer Center is so needed. With the growing population of Hunt County, we’ll need new technology to be able to accommodate the patient growth. When the Cancer Center opened  in 2008, we had a new state of the art LINAC for radiation treatment for patients. There have been so many updates to radiation therapy over the last 17 years that our equipment has actually reached kind of its end of life. It doesn’t have the ability to add features or additional treatments. With a new LINAC, treatment times for patients would be reduced because technology has changed. A treatment that might take five minutes may be reduced down to one minute and then we can see more patients more quickly.”

– Nora Minor, office manager, Lou and Jack Finney Cancer Center

“In the last more than a decade, we have seen tremendous growth of the center with respect to the number of patients that we’re seeing, the different types of cancers that we’re being able to treat, and the lines of different lines of services we’ve been able to add over the last decade. And that need is only going to continue to increase over the next few years so investing in resources that stay in this community is going to be very important.”

– Dr. Meera Shreedhara-Vasudha, oncologist

“If you’re having a heart attack, the most important aspect is getting care under 60 minutes and overall getting that blood vessel opened within 90 minutes. If we did not have the cardiac catheterization service here, that process turns into hours between transfer into another facility. It’s amazing for our community to have that level of access and to be able to get that problem fixed so quickly. It goes from pain to almost immediate correction.”

– Reese Hurley, chief  nursing officer, Hunt Regional Medical Center

“These services are so needed in our community. People experiencing cancer, getting those services. Not having to travel to Dallas in the traffic and to have these specialists so conveniently located. We’re kind of at a tipping point where we’re going to see a fast amount of growth here, so when you speak of the hospital, I see some real opportunities that we have to serve the community.”

– Dr. Graham Sweeney, retired Boles ISD Superintendent