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Gilford orthopedic clinic to shut; Concord Hospital says contract was ‘not viable’
Lakes Region General Hospital
Published: 2/17/2021 3:23:31 PM
A Gilford orthopedics clinic says it will close after 50 years because its contract with Lakes Region General Hospital isn’t being renewed as part of the likely takeover by Concord Hospital, one of the first visible changes spurred by the financial collapse of LRGHealthcare.
Advanced Orthopaedic Specialists said last week it would close by March 31 because Concord Hospital “chose not to renew the Provider Service Agreement that has been in place since 2004.”
Such agreements are common between hospitals and private group medical practices and can take many forms. They generally involve shared administrative costs and agreed-upon compensation for physicians.
After brutal months, health care workers see light
Dr. Dawn Barclay of Portsmouth Regional Hospital. Courtesy
Published: 2/16/2021 4:31:57 PM
Before COVID-19 emerged last year, the 18-bed ICU at Portsmouth Regional Hospital was already a busy place, full of post-surgery patients and emergency admissions: people suffering from heart attacks, strokes and pneumonia.
There, Dr. Dawn Barclay and her staff put their decades of experience, and centuries of medical knowledge, to use every day to guide treatment.
But in this pandemic, there’s just no precedent to turn to.
“COVID is different,” Barclay said. “You see young healthy people really with little to no comorbidities who.come in with a thromboembolic complication. What that means is they have blood clots, and it takes their life. Bam. Gone.”
Listen to the broadcast version of this story.
Those deaths, all of which Barclay calls preventable, piled up in New Hampshire this winter. Fueled by holiday gatherings, and a continued reluctance by some to follow public health guidelines, more than 530 residents died in December and January alone, nearly half of the total COVID-19 related deaths recorded in the state since the pandemic began. On any given day through most of December and January, New Hampshire hospitals were treating between 200 and 300 people for COVID-19 far more than were reported during any earlier wave of the pandemic, according to the available data.
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CONCORD, NH While U.S. coronavirus cases and deaths have been trending downward over the past week, hospitals across the country still report straining to meet the demands of the ongoing pandemic.
At the national level, during the week ending Jan. 25, deaths were running at an average of just under 3,100 a day down from a peak of more than 3,350 in the weeks prior, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. New cases were averaging about 170,000 a day after hitting almost 250,000 earlier this month.
Meanwhile, state health officials in New Hampshire reported to the federal government that 71 percent of all inpatient beds in hospitals across the state were still occupied as of Jan. 23. Around 8 percent of beds statewide were filled by COVID-19 patients, they reported.