Closing down the only nearby hospital is generally considered worse.

This is about providing life-saving care, not Toys R Us.

As a first order approximation, closing down a nearby hospital and sending patients to one further away is only worse than PE if PE doesn't worsen care to such an extent that more people die there than would've en route to the other one. And most companies aren't about lifegiving care anyways.

	▲	welcome_dragon 2 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		The commenter spoke specifically about the lone hospital in an area. e.g. rural areas Hospitals in those areas tend to not offer as high quality of care as most urban/suburban hospital. When the only hospital in an area closes, it's not just a matter of going slightly farther out for care. In many cases, it's just not possible for people. This is a big issue with the idea of socialized health care as it could happen in America. Right now we already have a two (or three) tiered healthcare system: one for the "rich" meaning urban and suburban and one for the "poor, remote, and/or rural". When people talk about socialized health care they rarely if ever talk about how to keep such a system from getting worse. So when a rural hospital closes down, you can expect a higher death rate in the local population. Not to mention the economic impact of losing what is probably the highest paying employer around and all the fallout that comes from that.
	▲	crazygringo 2 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Well yes, that's the whole point of ambulances and such. More people will die because minutes matter. And this whole topic is specifically about companies in the business of livegiving care. Hospital ER's.