Reading Hospital should spend more money in Reading to help poor people

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.

Reading Eagle’s manner of reporting day-time burglaries is criminal

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.

We need news about Berks County, not Harrisburg, in Berks

The Reading Eagle is all about Harrisburg on Friday. The problem is we need more news about Reading, not state government. 

And as usual, the local paper misses the real story – Kathleen Kane is turning into Michael Jackson.

Many fine reporters are telling us what’s going on in Harrisburg. We need the Reading Eagle to release its many fine reporters on our city, where the stories are that affect Berks County. A few jump quickly to mind:

• How are the local political machines recruiting candidates for Reading mayor? So far I’m not impressed.
• What is going on with the buildings on Penn Street that the city bought last year? What’s Boscov going to do with them?
• How many houses did Boscov’s Our City Reading renovate in 2014? How many did he sell? How much did it all cost? Where did the money come from? Is that scatter-shot approach the best way to do community development?
• What is the new school superintendent doing to get parents more involved?
• What is going on with the district’s alternative school, which will produce criminals if not run properly?
• How is the I-LEAD charter school doing? How much does it cost the district?
• How do Reading schools teach Spanish speakers? Is it effective?
• What's up with the community health center planned for Oakbrook? Do any doctors in the city take Medicaid patients?

The clueless Eagle editors might wonder why cover the city. The people there don’t vote much, don’t buy much and certainly don’t read the Reading Eagle.

But it’s the most important news for all of us in Berks. While the rising national economy and new love for urban living are letting Allentown and Lancaster and many other cities take flight, Reading is the millstone dragging Berks down.

How to change that depends on knowledge and information and insight, but we’re not getting any from the Reading Eagle. We need better journalism to make things better here.

Fluffy Reading Eagle story about hospitals serves bigwigs, not public

By Steve Reinbrecht

Another non-story on the front page of our award-winning Reading Eagle newspaper adds to my wonder about the editors’ agenda. There is some meaning in the story, but you have to read between the lines.

It’s on a vitally important topic – how the absorption of our second hospital by the leviathan Penn State-Hershey medical conglomerate will affect health care in Berks County.

The sub-headline states: “Penn State, St. Joe officials discuss how merger can enhance patient care.”

If they did, the story doesn’t mention how patients will benefit. Or maybe one example – now you might be diagnosed online: “A new telestroke program has allowed neurologists at Penn State Hershey to evaluate stroke patients via computer and a webcam system and then coordinate care with St. Joseph emergency doctors. That program has kept more and more patients in Berks for care.”

“How patient care will change is part of an exciting brainstorming process, hospital officials said Wednesday,” we learn in the second paragraph. “They aim … to offer better care at lower cost.”

Doesn’t this sound like an advertisement?

“[The dean of Penn State’s college of medicine] said the ultimate focus will be to provide the best care for residents at the lowest possible price.”

Kind of like Wal-Mart.

Top executives “discussed the acquisition … Wednesday.” Where? Some secret location? Did the Eagle reporter join them?

If he did, did he ask any questions? Do you expect layoffs? Have there been layoffs in similar acquisitions? How will patient care change? [See subhead.] What changes will patients see? When will they see them? How will the merger affect local health-care problems described in the recent Berks County health assessment and vital-signs reports? 

“In the new model, often called the population health model, hospitals and health systems will be challenged to keep the communities they serve healthy over time.”

Most people outside Reading have pretty good health care, including insurance and access. Not so in the city. Why not ask about that?

One possibility is that someone really important told the newspaper editors they needed more stories about how wonderful this merger is, so the editors manufactured this story.

It’s too bad for all of us that the editors at our primary newsgathering institution are more worried about appearances than content. Don’t they know it’s their job to clear up official blather rather than spread it?

This story’s placement, lack of content, lack of purpose and lack of skepticism serves the establishment, not the community. Stories like this make it seem like the Eagle serves the powerful before it serves its readers. That would be anti-journalism!