State Sen. Rezin says rural areas need more funding for health care

State Sen. Sue Rezin, R-Morris, told the Grundy County Economic Development Council Monday that additional federal and state funding is needed to address the lack of health care in rural areas.

She was responding to a question from Nancy Norton, president and CEO of the Grundy County Economic Development Council regarding what the state of Illinois was doing to “assist and protect rural healthcare in our region?”

“One of the biggest problems I see in the State of Illinois that is not talked about is that rural health care, and health care in general, is crushing under the weight of people moving into state paid and federal paid programs, so the hospitals are not receiving as much money,” Rezin said. “Nursing shortages, increase in supplies, increase in staff, and increase in mandates, we have a doctor shortage or professional shortage.”

She said times to see a doctor have grown from a week to two weeks to three months, to five or eight months in some cases. She said some people have gone to the emergency room and had to wait eight hours for service.

The solution is more funding at the federal and state level, Rezin said, but also a decrease in the time it takes for professionals to get licenses.

“Insurance companies are, because of the new mandates and the cost of insurance, we have less and less insurance companies for you to access,” she said. “At some point, we’ll have one to two insurance companies in the state of Illinois. There’s something going on in health care. We need to pay attention. It’s not good, but we definitely need more funding at the state and federal level.”

Rezin said Grundy County is lucky to have Morris Hospital. On the west side of her district in Peru and Spring Valley, two hospitals announce their closing within a week of each other in 2023, and now OSF St. Elizabeth is seeking to move services from Ottawa to Peru.