Doctors Hospital of Manteca’s decision to drop its labor and delivery services can be attributed to a large degree to the fact the San Joaquin Valley is suffering from inadequate numbers of trained medical professionals.
It is the same malady that the new Veterans Administration Hospital that will be completed in French Camp in 2024 is facing in trying to staff the state-of-the-art $143 million facility being built next door to San Joaquin Hospital along Interstate 5.
And it is what has forced the existing VA clinic in French Camp to struggle with providing needed services to area veterans.
In recent months, four of the VA clinic’s eight fulltime physicians have left. It has created a patient backlog where it now takes 90 days to get an appointment.
The wait is the worst in California.
By contrast, appointments made at the Palo Alto VA clinic in the Bay Area are less than a week out.
It is why Congressman Josh Harder is pushing to use federal resources to secure more doctors for the valley.
That means leveraging programs that pay for medical school debt for doctors who opt to commit to practice in underserved communities. Part of that endeavor was Harder’s re-introducing his Train More Doctors Act.
Harder — speaking before the Manteca Rotary on Thursday during a meeting at Prestige Living — noted the California Medical Association believes if his efforts are successful the loan repayment program alone would add 10,000 medical professionals to the San Joaquin Valley.
And to get a long-term solution in place, Harder is working with others to eventually get a medical school established at the University of California’s Merced campus.
Currently, 9 out of 10 doctors that do their residency in valley hospitals end up going to the Bay Area.
The Bay Area has double the San Joaquin Valley per capita when it comes to doctors.
The only place that is worse in California is the Inland Empire — Riverside and San Bernardino counties in Southern California.
The Inland Empire is a high growth area that mirrors the Northern San Joaquin Valley’s growing commuter base
Harder said he wasn’t “disrespecting” the valley where he was born and raised, but he pointed out the valley has a marketing problem.
By having a valley-based medical school, the chances of graduates staying here to work will go up significantly.
“Most people want to live and work where they grew up,” Harder said.
And while there is a national shortage of medical professionals, the situation is more acute in the San Joaquín Valley where it has been an issue for going on three decades.
Harder is also conducting a Veterans Town Hall meeting on Friday, Sept, 8, from 11 a.m. to noon at the Manteca VFW Post 6311 Veterans Center, 580 Moffat Blvd.
Representatives from the San Joaquin County Veterans Service Office and the Veterans Administration Northern California Healthcare System will be present.
The town hall will touch on the Pact Act and other veterans healthcare benefits that are available.
The Train More Doctors Act addresses the medical professional shortage by extending the current Medicare Graduate Medical Education (GME) residency cap timeline by two years for teaching hospitals that have had their recruitment disrupted by the COVID-19 public health crisis.
Currently, hospitals that establish residency programs in underserved areas are eligible for accreditation and funding from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) after a five-year building period.
St. Joseph’s Medical Center in San Joaquin County, a chronically underserved area, started their residency program in 2018 and was expected to finish building by 2022.
Since the pandemic prevented students, physicians, and doctors from traveling or relocating, recruitment severely slowed
Doctors Hospital of Manteca – after what administrators called “careful consideration” — consolidated labor and delivery services into the existing programs offered at nearby sister facilities, which includes Doctors Medical Center in Modesto, effective July 24,.
DHM continues to offer other women’s health services including gynecological care, women’s imaging and breast cancer surgery.
To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com
