By Steve Reinbrecht
The Reading Health System, in West Reading, isn’t doing enough to achieve its mission, the part about providing “accessible” health care to the community.
The gaps in community health-care in Berks County are clear – poor people don’t have enough doctors who accept public insurance and are within reach. So, many of them drag their sick kids to the emergency room, boosting health costs for everybody. Or they don’t get care, letting problems develop, boosting health costs for everybody.
Last week, Dr. Lucy Cairns, president of Berks County Medical Society, told Berks leaders at the Berks Chamber’s annual community report that Berks lags neighboring counties in patient-to-doctor ratios.
The hospital’s own website has a link to a community health assessment, released in January 2013. Its top recommendation was improving access to essential health care. Here is what to do, it said very clearly:
“Increase the capacity of existing providers and add new providers to improve access to essential healthcare services for at-risk populations.”
The Reading Housing Authority – not the hospital – is leading a charge to make sure more people in Reading get proper health care. It plans to spend $1.5 million to create a health center near the Oakbrook public-housing development. Like the health center on Penn Street, which Reading Hospital used to run, it will serve anyone regardless of ability to pay.
By Steve Reinbrecht
Did you know that there is an “epidemic” of day-time burglaries in rural Berks County townships?
That state police and local detectives are meeting about the problem?
To me, this is big news, a matter of public safety. Burglary rates are good measures of quality of life and security. The idea of a desperate intruder entering one’s house and tearing it apart in a search for one’s treasure is terrifying. This is why people think they need guns. I know burglary victims feel violated and may grieve over the loss of their domestic inviolability.
If people were breaking into houses in your neighborhood, wouldn’t you want to know about it? But it’s hard to understand what’s going from our local newsgathering institution, the Reading Eagle. They bury the news and scatter it on back pages.
In paragraph 10 of a column in the Eagle on Saturday, we learn that “there's been an epidemic of daytime burglaries in recent months, mostly along rural roads not far from population centers. Homes in Alsace, Lower Alsace, Ruscombmanor and Earl townships, to name a few, have been ransacked in the middle of the day.”
How about a NEWS STORY about these brazen crimes? Are they connected? How about a map? On which rural roads not far from which population centers did the victims live? When did they happen? Any descriptions? How did they get in? What was taken? What times? Any patterns? Any advice from police?
Searching the Eagle archives, my privilege as a subscriber, I discovered a lot of burglary reports. But it’s up to editors and reporters, not to mention the police, to connect the dots and spread the news.
