Have you ever thought about where we would be without our local hospitals? Where would we go with broken bones, life threatening injuries, cuts, and all of those other nasty things that can happen to us? It is hard to imagine what it was like when the local hospital was 45 miles away one way. It seems that now days there is a hospital on every side of town. And that is a wonderful thing. Some local hospitals have emergency rooms that are open 24 hours. Yet there are some local hospitals that have emergency rooms that are only open certain hours of the day or night. Some local hospitals are small enough that one doctor can staff the emergency room, while other local hospitals must have several doctors there or on call. Some local hospitals with emergency rooms can also have what is known as Fast Track. This is where they take the least serious injuries or illnesses as quick as they can. This has really cut down on a lot of the wait time in local hospitals emergency rooms. Some local hospitals are equipped to handle traumas and disasters while others are not set up for those types of injuries. There are even some local hospitals that have a landing pad for emergency transport helicopters. Local hospitals vary in size from one with as few as 25 to 50 beds or as many as 1,000 beds (some even more). Some local hospitals have Cardiac Care Units and Intensive Care Units. There are some local hospitals that are equipped to do major surgeries while others can do very minor surgeries or they cannot do any at all.
