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For nearly 70 years, hospitals across the country have come together for one week each year to celebrate the special role they play in their communities. This year, however, like so many parts of our lives, National Hospital Week feels different.
The purpose of National Hospital Week is to pause and reflect on hospitals, health systems, and health care workers, and on the lives they save and change. For many, hospitals are so interwoven into the fabric of their communities that their presence can be easily taken for granted. So National Hospital Week has served as a reminder to all of us why hospitals are important to those in need.
But if the COVID-19 pandemic has shown anything, it’s that nothing can be taken for granted — especially our hospitals, which are at the forefront of the crisis response. California’s hospitals stood shoulder to shoulder with the state to prepare for and care for the thousands of people with COVID-19 to date and those to come, even though that work places them in financial jeopardy. And efforts are underway to seek immediate financial relief for hospitals so they can continue to meet the needs of their communities and their mission of care.
We celebrate this week the meaningful work of hospitals — because no matter what the challenge, hospitals find a way to care for people. And that’s what all of this — COVID-19, life-saving emergency room care, miraculous surgeries, beautiful new babies — is really about: people taking care of people.
Thank you, California hospitals, for all you do.
– Carmela
