After removal, communities must face the enormous challenge of remaking divisive public spaces into places that promote healing and reconciliation. We suggest that communities confronting these issues and seeking a way forward look at the recent experience in the city of Memphis.
As part of a national, multicity effort, a collaboration of public and non-profit partners in Memphis has transformed a six-city block area adjacent to downtown and the Mississippi River called the Fourth Bluff into a series of connected, vibrant and dynamic spaces that include a library, a trail and two parks. This transformation included changing the names of parks and the dramatic removal of Confederate monuments, but the work didn’t stop there.
Andrew Craft for KHN
New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington, North Carolina, is a publicly owned hospital delivering good care at lower prices than most others and still makes money―yet the county is selling the hospital to one of the state’s biggest healthcare systems.
In America s healthcare system, dominated by hospital chain leviathans, New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington, North Carolina, is an anomaly. It is a publicly owned hospital that boasts good care at lower prices than most and still flourishes financially.
Nonetheless, New Hanover County is selling the hospital to one of the state s biggest healthcare systems. The sale has stoked concerns locally that the change in ownership will raise fees, which would not only leave patients with bigger bills but also eventually filter down into higher health insurance premiums for Wilmington workers.
If this self-sufficient hospital cannot stand alone, can any public hospital survive?
If Wilmington’s self-sufficient medical center cannot stand alone, can any public hospital avoid being subsumed into the large systems that economists say are helping propel the cost of American health care ever upward?
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In America’s health care system, dominated by hospital chain leviathans, New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington, North Carolina, is an anomaly. It is a publicly owned hospital that boasts good care at lower prices than most and still flourishes financially.
Nonetheless, New Hanover County is selling the hospital to one of the state’s biggest health care systems. The sale has stoked concerns locally that the change in ownership will raise fees, which would not only leave patients with bigger bills but also eventually filter down into higher health insurance premiums for Wilmington workers.
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Si Cantwell
It all started with an old metal desk.
The organization now known as Domestic Violence Shelter and Services was formed by a merger of two small nonprofits. Mary Ann Lama was hired Nov. 1, 1985, to start the agency.
Today, the organization shelters victims of domestic abuse and operates public awareness and prevention programs. Since its founding in January 1986, it has sheltered more than 8,000 people, including 53 men, and provided services to more than 70,000 people, 13,000 of them children.
Demand has been rising as family problems are magnified by the pandemic.
The organization recently purchased a new, larger shelter to replace the one closed by Hurricane Florence in 2018. In 2020, Lama turned 65 and handed over the reins to new Executive Director Lauren Daley, who was director of operations and development.