Published on June 4, 2020, in the Mangum Star
Mangum, with around 2,700 residents, would be hard to find on a map of western Oklahoma, but last Friday Mayor Mary Jane Scott joined mayors of Los Angeles, Atlanta and other large cities in a video hearing held by a U.S. House sub-committee.
Scott was the voice for small, rural communities and the impact of the coronavirus on them. Mangum, with 66 total cases, had the highest infected community per capita in Oklahoma at 10.9 percent, Scott said.
The issues she brought up included farming and ranching struggles, sales tax concerns, rural healthcare needs and city service assistance. Scott spent most of her time talking to representatives about the Mangum Regional Medical Center [MRMC} and rural hospitals in general. Nearly 30 percent of Mangum’s population is over 65 years old, part of the vulnerable population most at-risk in the Coronavirus pandemic. When COVID-19 hit Mangum, over half of the residents at Mangum Skilled Nursing and Therapy, as well as some of the staff, contracted the virus. In response to the local outbreak, the hospital, which only has 18 beds to begin with, sectioned off a wing to dedicate to the virus.
All of Mangum’s infected population have recovered, and there have been seven deaths, but Scott said she is worried a second wave could be devastating. Seven rural hospitals in Oklahoma closed last year, some due to financial strain, and now MRMC serves five counties. Scott believes the hospital could be overburdened if nothing happens on the federal level.
“We are now faced with 1.5 million rural Oklahomans with significantly decreased access to healthcare,” she said. “As the hospitals across the country have felt a heavy economic hit, we are fighting to keep our great hospital open.”
Scott told the representatives that hospitals need federal financial assistance to be able to keep providing rural citizens with healthcare. She said the assistance needs to be free of stipulations so the hospitals can spend it on whatever they need to combat the COVID-19 outbreak.
Scott said she is worried the financial stress on the hospital will render them unable to help the community if no assistance comes.
Rep. Jim Clyburn, a democrat from South Carolina and the chairman of the subcommittee, told Scott he believed the HEROES Act has some funds available for hospitals, and he hopes they can get the bill passed.
Scott also brought up the city’s main source of income, sales tax.
“Even if one business fails, it has devastating consequences in our little city. We have two sources of income in the city, sales tax and electricity, and we are looking at 75-80% of the tax revenue to decline for April and May. That is huge to us.”
She said Mangum is pushing through the struggle, but a second wave would be devastating and hinder the city’s ability to provide necessary services to the community.
“Police, fire, parks, city pool, library will all need help to survive. We will need federal assistance of some kind.”
The bipartisan House Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis was created in April to examine “the efficiency, effectiveness, equity, and transparency of the use of taxpayer funds and relief programs to address the coronavirus crisis,” according to their website.
Along with Scott, other mayors in attendance for the briefing were: Mayor Bryan K. Barnett of Rochester Hills, Mich.; Mayor Stephen K. Benjamin of Columbia, S.C.; Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms of Atlanta; Mayor Jenny Durkan of Seattle; Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles; and Mayor Lenny Curry of Jacksonville, Fla.