Many rural hospitals are struggling financially. It’s estimated that more than 600 or 30% of the nation’s rural hospitals are at risk of closing. Eleven of them are in Pennsylvania.

Rural hospitals serve relatively small populations and don’t have enough business to cover their fixed costs.

Bucktail Medical Center in South Renovo, Clinton County has started a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for the hospital. Bucktail’s CEO Timothy Reeves was on The Spark Thursday.

Reeves states that, "Our service area is about 3100 people. We do a lot of things. Here we are. We are an acute care hospital. We have 16 inpatient beds. We have an emergency room that's open 24/7. We have a long term care facility that is 43 beds. We have a community clinic with two providers that serves as the primary care provider for people in these communities. And we also offer a basic for ambulance service, and I only ever have one Doctor here at a time. Our volumes are slow and that Doctor works both in the E.R. and in the acute care hospital. 

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