Shenandoah has busiest medical landing zone in county, among highest health need in east-central Pa.
KAYLEE LINDENMUTH / SHENANDOAH SENTINEL - A Geisinger LifeFlight helicopter at Shenandoah's helipad on Feb. 17, 2023, along with a Shenandoah Ambulance.
SHENANDOAH – Since the 1981 closing of the Locust Mountain Hospital, medical helicopters have regularly taken Shenandoah’s critical patients to area hospitals. In the past five years, that has happened here more often than anywhere else in Schuylkill County.
In fact, Shenandoah has 50% more emergency medical flights than the second highest municipality in the county.
Data received from the Schuylkill County Communications Center via a Right-to-Know request outlined each medical landing zone call a Schuylkill County fire department responded to since 2018.
That data showed Shenandoah volunteer firefighters handled 154 landing zones since 2018, of which all but a handful were at the helipad on East Washington Street. In that timeframe, Shenandoah was the only municipality in triple digits, with Pine Grove Township handling the second-most landing zones at 92.
Shenandoah’s landing zones made up 12% of all landing zones in Schuylkill County.
Northern Schuylkill, the first region of the county to have a hospital, has been without one since the 2012 closure of Saint Catherine Medical Center in Fountain Springs. Saint Catherine was Schuylkill County’s first hospital.
That hospital, abandoned ever since, is still a common location for ambulances to whisk patients to. Medical helicopters from Geisinger Health Systems and Lehigh Valley Health Network regularly use the facility’s helipad for emergency flights, 60 since 2018, an average of 12 a year.
Landing zone data from prior to the medical center’s closure was not available, so it is not clear if its closure contributed to an increase in medical flights.
The median cost of an air medical flight ranges from over $36,000 to $40,000, according to the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
Shenandoah’s closest hospital today is 12 miles south down Route 61, Lehigh Valley Hospital – Schuylkill in Pottsville. Route 61 between Saint Clair and Frackville, commonly referred to locally as “the Grade” can be a treacherous thoroughfare in winter weather.
The next-nearest hospitals, in Hazleton, Coaldale, and Shamokin, are 18, 19, and 23 miles away respectively. Saint Catherine in Fountain Springs was about nine miles from Shenandoah.
Additionally, there are less ambulances covering northern Schuylkill County than several years ago. Ambulance services in Girardville and Nuremberg have closed, while services in Lost Creek and Ringtown have merged with neighboring services. If an air medical service is unavailable for a critical patient, those ambulances drive an hour away to Geisinger in Danville or Lehigh Valley Hospital – Cedar Crest in Lehigh County, further removing emergency medical resources from the region for at least two hours.
In a Community Health Needs Assessment conducted for its Danville and Shamokin hospital, Geisinger recognized that Shenandoah and Mahanoy City have among the highest health needs in east-central Pennsylvania.
The health system calculated a Community Need Index (CNI) for 81 zip codes composing the service area of the two hospitals, on a scale of 1 (low need) to 5 (high need).
Shenandoah and Mahanoy City were among the only zip codes to score a 4 or higher, the only others being Hazleton, Wilkes-Barre, and Scranton.
Geisinger does not have a facility of any kind in Shenandoah, nor does Lehigh Valley Health Network or St. Luke’s University Health Network, the other two major health networks in eastern Pennsylvania.
All three health networks have built and/or are planning to build new hospitals in other parts of eastern Pa.
Geisinger and St. Luke’s partnered several years ago to build a new hospital near Orwigsburg, while St. Luke’s and Lehigh Valley both built new hospitals in Carbon County. Lehigh Valley has also built new hospitals near Easton and Dickson City and is planning new hospitals in the Macungie and Bethlehem areas.
“The services we offer here at our Carbon Campus continue to reduce the need for patients to be transported away from the comfort of their community for their health care needs,” John Nespoli, St. Luke’s Carbon’s president, said in a media release touting the hospital’s expansion earlier this month.
For medical care of any kind from the major health networks, Shenandoah residents have to leave town, and, for emergency care rising beyond the means of an urgent care, residents must drive nearly a half hour or more.
A request for context and comment was sent to Geisinger, St. Luke’s, and Lehigh Valley. None of the health networks responded.
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