No place to get sick

In the Mississippi Delta, the stress on hospitals, doctors, and nurses— and patients—just won’t let up

- By Monte Reel, Photography by Ariel Cobbert

In Greenwood, an old cotton port town in the Mississippi Delta, 10 people gathered last July around a table in the center of a gray conference room. They stood with their backs straight, heads bowed. One man bent forward and pressed his palms flat on the white tablecloth.

“We ask, Father God, that you bless the administration of this hospital— our CEO, our VP,” he said. “We ask, Father God, that you bless this board of commissioners …”

The opening prayer at this particular meeting carried a little more urgency than usual, because Greenwood Leflore Hospital faced a financial reckoning.

When the prayer was done, the chief financial officer took her seat at the head of the table and projected a PowerPoint slide on the wall. She reviewed a list of recent credits and debits: the income from Covid federal aid payments, capital expenses, debt repayments, revenue. “So,” she said, “that gives us a loss of $3.3 million for the month of June.”

No one seemed surprised. “And what did we lose last month?” someone asked.

“Let me find that …” The CFO reached for a stack of papers, but another board member had committed the figure to memory: “$2.6 million,” he said.