BELZONI, Miss. — Concord Ball-Stribling’s path to being pregnant had been turbulent, from an endometriosis analysis to an arduous in vitro fertilization course of and sky-high blood strain. However as her due date approached in the summertime of 2021, her well being improved and people storm clouds appeared to scatter.
“It was just too perfect,” stated her mom, Shenelle Ball-Inexperienced, of these calm, sizzling weeks.
Then, early on July 5, 4 days shy of her scheduled cesarean part, Ball-Stribling started experiencing problems from preeclampsia, a probably life-threatening blood strain dysfunction. Dashing as much as 110 mph, her husband drove her to the closest hospital 25 miles away from their house in Belzoni, a Mississippi Delta city of about 1,900 folks.
Minutes earlier than reaching the power, Ball-Stribling suffered a seizure within the passenger seat. Her husband pulled her from the automobile and carried out CPR on the facet of the street. It was too late. She and the couple’s unborn daughter, Harper, died on the facet of U.S. Route 49.
The tragedy may need had a special consequence if the hospital in Belzoni, a five-minute drive from Ball-Stribling’s house, hadn’t closed 13 years in the past. At this time, Humphreys County has no hospital, no emergency room, no pressing care clinic, and no county well being division. It’s certainly one of greater than 100 rural hospitals within the U.S. which have totally closed since 2005.
In Belzoni, self-proclaimed “The Heart of the Delta,” and its surrounding space, communities are close-knit, and Concord’s story is well-known. Now, her dying has galvanized native and state leaders decided to deliver a hospital again to the county that has suffered with out one.
“It was a tremendous eye-opener for this community,” stated state Rep. Timaka James-Jones, a Democrat who represents the district that features Belzoni and is Ball-Stribling’s aunt. “It brought to light how we are so without.”
Poverty usually shapes the well being disparities Humphreys County residents expertise. Roughly 1 in 7 Humphreys County residents underneath age 65 lack medical health insurance protection, in contrast with about 1 in 11 folks nationwide. Humphreys County additionally has the highest charge of Medicaid enrollment of any Mississippi county, reflecting the financial challenges many residents face. These disparities are evident within the county’s toddler mortality charge, which is among the many highest within the state at roughly 15 deaths for each 1,000 births.
James-Jones has watched these circumstances affect the lives — and deaths — of her family members. She stated she desires to see a hospital reestablished earlier than her four-year time period is up in early 2028.
However which may be simpler stated than carried out. In Belzoni, native leaders hoping to revive healthcare companies face a tangled net of coverage challenges which might be particularly demanding for a small city with restricted sources. Its story displays what many healthcare coverage consultants warn: As soon as a rural group loses a hospital, bringing it again will be almost unimaginable.
Humphreys County’s Healthcare Losses
Humphreys County Memorial Hospital opened in Belzoni in 1951 as a part of a nationwide hospital constructing growth fueled by a Truman-era legislation known as the Hill-Burton Act. The laws supplied billions of {dollars} in grants and loans to construct and modernize healthcare services. On the time, roughly 40% of all U.S. counties had no hospital. When the constructing growth started to subside by 1970, all however seven counties in Mississippi had at the very least one hospital.
However by the 2000s, many rural hospitals within the U.S. confronted monetary difficulties. Low affected person volumes, a rise in outpatient care, and meager revenues left many on precarious footing. Many had excessive charges of uninsured sufferers or these lined by authorities packages corresponding to Medicaid, which usually reimburse suppliers at decrease charges than business insurers.
Humphreys County’s hospital was amongst these struggling services. It was burdened with hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in debt, and county officers offered it in 2008 to a non-public firm. It was renamed the Sufferers’ Alternative Medical Middle. The hospital shut down 5 years later after Ray Shoemaker, the corporate’s CEO, was convicted on healthcare fraud costs associated to a different hospital he owned.
“I do hope they reopen,” Shoemaker wrote in a latest textual content message to Mississippi At this time. “The community needs a hospital.” He stated he stepped down from the corporate earlier than going to jail in 2012.
In 2017, the College of Mississippi Medical Middle partnered with the county supervisors and U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Democrat whose district contains Humphreys County, to safe a almost $1 million grant from the U.S. Division of Agriculture to open an after-hours acute care clinic in Belzoni. The clinic shut down in 2020, and UMMC officers declined to say why.
G.A. Carmichael Household Well being Middle, a Canton-based federally certified well being heart with 5 different areas in Mississippi, took it over however didn’t preserve the prolonged hours, once more leaving Humphreys County residents with out after-hours care. Different public well being companies within the county have closed outright. Three years in the past, the county’s well being division stopped offering scientific companies, stated Greg Flynn, a spokesperson for the Mississippi State Division of Well being. The county division closed completely final yr, citing staffing shortages and low affected person volumes.
Within the years because the hospital closed, the county has misplaced a fourth of its inhabitants, falling to 7,000 folks, in keeping with census information. James-Jones stated she doesn’t imagine the group can expertise development till healthcare companies are reestablished.
“I don’t know how I can see us growing any other way,” she stated.
‘Something’s Method Higher Than Nothing’
Months after shedding her daughter and unborn granddaughter, Ball-Inexperienced climbed the steps of the stately, tan, brick Humphreys County Courthouse to attend a crowded Board of Supervisors assembly.
She stood on the dais and urged the supervisors to reestablish emergency healthcare companies within the county to guard different residents from the fates of her family members.
“I wanted to let them know at any given moment that could be your child, your mother,” she stated. “We’re a small town. Everyone knows everyone.”
She remembered the frustration she felt when the supervisors informed her there was nothing they might do. However when the board’s make-up modified after the 2023 elections, she stated, she noticed these attitudes shift.
Among the many newly elected officers was Reggie Pinkston, who’s now the president of the board and beforehand labored as an EMT when the hospital was open. His family has suffered the implications of restricted healthcare entry. A cousin dwelling in Louise, a city about 20 miles south of Belzoni within the county, had a stroke in 2021 and waited an hour for an ambulance to reach. She died two days later.
Pinkston stated witnessing residents’ delays in care has made increasing entry to healthcare companies certainly one of his priorities.
“We’re losing too many people in our county because of lack of healthcare,” Pinkston stated.
The board enlisted a number of consultants to develop a technique for increasing healthcare entry and figuring out funding sources to assist these efforts. In late 2025, Thompson secured roughly $1 million for Humphreys County by the congressional Neighborhood Undertaking Funding course of, which permits lawmakers to request federal assist for particular tasks.
The funds will likely be used to broaden companies at G.A. Carmichael’s Belzoni location in a county-owned constructing on U.S. Route 49, Pinkston stated. Enlargement plans embrace extending its hours of operation in a single day to five a.m., buying tools, and a attainable renovation of the power. It may start its expanded operations by September, stated James Coleman Jr., the well being heart’s CEO.
Establishing an after-hours pressing care clinic is a place to begin towards reestablishing emergency care companies or a hospital, James-Jones stated.
“Something’s way better than nothing,” she stated.
‘Not for the Faint of Heart’
Regardless of that encouraging first step, Humphreys County faces steep obstacles to opening a hospital.
On the College of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, George Pink is a senior analysis fellow on the Cecil G. Sheps Middle for Well being Providers Analysis and tracks rural hospital closures throughout the U.S. He stated he’s conscious of just a few communities which have efficiently reopened a hospital after it closed.
“I can count that on one hand,” stated Pink, who is aware of of roughly 5 such examples.
Communities face important hurdles to reestablishing a hospital, together with securing financing for building or renovation, recruiting certified employees, and protecting substantial working bills through the licensing course of earlier than the power can deal with sufferers and generate income, stated Brock Slabach, the Nationwide Rural Well being Affiliation’s chief operations officer and a former rural hospital administrator in southwestern Mississippi.
“Reopening a hospital is not for the faint of heart,” Slabach stated. “Once they close, it’s very difficult to reopen them.”
To finance a possible hospital mission in Humphreys County, native and state leaders stated they plan to hunt funding by the Rural Well being Transformation Program, a federal initiative that can distribute $50 billion to states over 5 years. The federal authorities allotted Mississippi almost $206 million in December for this system’s first yr.
This system is supposed to offset finances cuts handed into legislation final summer time that would hurt rural hospitals. Republicans’ One Massive Lovely Invoice Act will minimize the federal authorities’s Medicaid spending by $911 billion over 10 years and enhance the variety of uninsured folks by 10 million, in keeping with Congressional Price range Workplace estimates. Mississippi hospitals are projected to lose roughly $160 million yearly starting in 2029, in keeping with Cindy Bradshaw, govt director of the Mississippi Division of Medicaid.
However in keeping with federal tips, this system’s funding can’t be used for building or main constructing expansions. Officers stated the county will as a substitute take into account making use of for funds by this system to assist the recruitment of healthcare professionals.
The federal Rural Emergency Hospital designation is one other approach rural communities can maintain emergency and outpatient companies. Hospitals in that program obtain over $3 million yearly from the federal authorities and a better Medicare reimbursement charge, however they can’t provide inpatient care.
Analysis by Pink’s crew reveals that many hospitals that transformed to the mannequin, which was established in 2023, noticed an enhance in profitability.
However there’s a catch. To obtain the designation, a hospital should have been open in 2020, making Humphreys County ineligible. Mississippi’s junior U.S. senator, Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith, launched laws in 2024 to lengthen the cutoff to 2014, a threshold that will have nonetheless excluded Humphreys County.
James-Jones stated county leaders have urged Hyde-Smith to amend the proposed laws so Humphreys County may qualify. Hyde-Smith didn’t reply to a request for remark for this text.
For county leaders, the trail to widening healthcare entry means navigating a thicket of state and federal insurance policies, funding streams, and regulatory hurdles.
Some latest state-level coverage modifications have created alternatives for healthcare growth in Humphreys County. In March, Republican Gov. Tate Reeves signed laws exempting Humphreys County from Mississippi’s certificates of want necessities, which are supposed to forestall pointless healthcare expansions.
The exemption may make the county extra engaging to potential healthcare suppliers. However the monetary challenges that contributed to the closure of Sufferers’ Alternative Medical Middle in 2013 stay, and Mississippi lawmakers have continued to reject Medicaid growth, limiting a possible supply of reimbursement for rural hospitals and clinics.
Business officers count on hospitals’ monetary pressures to accentuate as Medicaid funding cuts take impact. The newest problem is predicting how these cuts will have an effect on the underside traces of those services and whether or not further cuts will come sooner or later, stated Richard Roberson, president and CEO of the Mississippi Hospital Affiliation.
“If someone’s trying to run a business, they’ve got to be able to know what those numbers look like,” Roberson stated. “And it’s really hard to try to project that out right now.”
‘Now I Understand’
For Ball-Inexperienced, giving in to those obstacles could be a disservice to the Humphreys County residents who face well being emergencies just like the one her daughter skilled.
It has been 5 years because the funeral, however Ball-Inexperienced remembers it clearly. The day was stormy, however attendees brightened the gathering by carrying yellow, Ball-Stribling’s favourite coloration.
As family and friends gathered to pay their respects, her mom thought again on a relative’s funeral 4 months earlier. At that service, Ball-Stribling sang the gospel basic You Are My Energy to a roomful of mourners.
“She was singing, and she looked at me,” Ball-Inexperienced stated, describing a peaceable however eerie expression on her daughter’s face in that second — an indication of one thing to return, although she didn’t but know what. “She turned around, and it was just that look, you know?”
Months later, as she sat at her daughter’s funeral, she started to interpret the foreboding look in a different way. She got here to imagine it was an indication that Ball-Stribling’s reward for serving to others by sharing her story wouldn’t finish along with her dying.
That function had taken form years earlier in her work as a trainer and continued as she shared candid social media posts about her fertility struggles and IVF journey within the ultimate months of her life. Ball-Inexperienced stated the group turned deeply invested in her and Harper’s story.
Within the years since, this reward has endured, she stated. Ball-Stribling’s story has continued to resonate all through Humphreys County, serving as a reminder of what residents stand to lose if they don’t reopen the hospital.
“I think back on when she looked back at me,” Ball-Inexperienced stated. “Now I understand.”
