ETMC Rusk's emergency center represents important economic development tool
TERRIE GONZALEZ

It seems like only yesterday.

On the morning of Aug. 5, 2002, I picked up the telephone and called my parents' house to see how my dad, Emmett Whitehead, was feeling.

He had advanced stage lung cancer, and there were good days and bad days.

Normally, I spoke with my mom each morning, and she would fill me in on everything. This particular morning, dad answered ... and I was taken aback.

When I asked how he was doing, he had a chipper response: "I feel better than I have in the last month of Sundays. I think I'm going to come to work today about 10 a.m."

For the last week, either dad did not go to his newspaper and radio station office or he just drifted in for a few minutes in the afternoon.

"Dad, why don't you think about taking it easy at home for a few hours this morning," I asked. "We can manage here at work, and you have a big afternoon today."

The big afternoon consisted of inking a deal that he had worked on for more than three years. Rusk Memorial Hospital had closed several years back, and Rusk's only medical services consisted of doctors' clinics without emergency room services.

Dr. Brian Kempton, an emergency center physician at ETMC Rusk, checks the vital signs of a patient on the facility's first day of operation last Friday. Dr. Kempton said the staff was kept busy throughout the day with a high census.

He made a personal goal and commitment to the citizens of Rusk to try and bring first class medical facilities to the city he loved. As mayor of Rusk, dad understood economic development. "A little town can't grow without medical facilities," he used to tell me.

During that afternoon, dad had three back-to-back meetings. At 3 p.m., Elmer Ellis, the CEO of ETMC, along with key members of his staff, came by to visit with dad and review the itinerary for the rest of the afternoon.

Just before 4 p.m., they made their way to city hall to meet with the Rusk Economic Development Corporation, to seek $300,000 from the half-cent sales tax for land acquisition. This proved to be a hard sell. Not everyone on the board thought this much money should be spent on a single project. When the final vote was cast, REDCO agreed to a five-year payout to purchase the site for ETMC on U.S. Highway 69 north.

The third and final meeting of the day at 5 p.m. was the Rusk City Council. And the council gave their full support to the recommendation just made by REDCO.

Dad's mood was ebullient. "Rusk is going to get a first class medical facility," he repeated over and over again.

By Friday, dad was having trouble breathing. I drove across his lawn so I could get closer and pick him up at the front door step. We made a fast ride to Tyler so we could get him admitted to the hospital.

But this trip was different from all the others, because it was dad's last. He died the following Tuesday on Aug. 13.

I think dad just relaxed. He had wanted a state-of-the-art medical facility in Rusk so badly for so long. And with the visionary support of REDCO and the city council, dad could see fruition. Maybe he just stopped fighting so hard.

ETMC-Rusk opened its doors in the spring of 2004, complete with an emergency room. Within a year, the emergency room was underutilized, and ETMC made the decision to convert the facility into halfday urgent care.

Last Friday, the emergency center doors reopened again for 24-hour care, and was fully staffed with a physician, a registered nurse, a licensed vocational nurse and plenty of support staff for intake.

When the announcement was made to re-open the emergency center, an ETMC spokesman discussed the economic development opportunities for the city.

Those words were repeated by Fire Chief Jack White and City Manager Mike Murray in interviews for a recent Cherokeean Herald story. Both cited economic development opportunities in addition to the obvious, life-saving benefits of an emergency care center inside the city limits.

And I remembered the words of my dad almost six years ago. "A little town can't grow without a medical facility."

Thank you, ETMC, for making the commitment to open the emergency center doors again.

Now, let's get about the business of economic development.