Terri Sewell urges continued support for Vaughan Regional Medical Center

Rep. Terri Sewell (AL-07) is urging support for the Vaughan Regional Medical Center (VRMC) in Selma after what she said was at risk of having a number of residents reduced.  

Sewell posted a video of a hearing with Dr. Emily Hawes, Director of the Sheps Graduate Medical Education Technical Assistance Center, in which she spoke about her concerns that the UAB Family Medicine Residency Program is considering cutting the residents down from its current staff of 15 residents. 

She said that VRMC has 175 beds and serves an estimated 90,000 people in four surrounding counties in addition to Selma and Dallas County. 

"And literally it is the lifeline," she said. "Those residents are the lifeline of providing health care services to the people of my district. In fact if we did not have residents we would have no doctors actually doing rounds at nighttime in this particular hospital." 

She went on to say that they were "instrumental" during the COVID pandemic. She also stated that she recently visited the hospital to discuss how to add more residents there. 

Sewell emphasized that these serves are especially needed in rural and underserved areas.

She asked Hawes to speak about the benefits of increasing residents in these communities, to which she cited an example in Bibby County of reopening a labor and delivery unit led to a decrease in infant mortality rates. Hawes also emphasized increasing the amount training that could more health care workers. 

See the video here.