Column: Is IU Health's monopoly the reason our community has a doctor shortage?

I am calling for a revolt — not a violent one, but an economic revolt. In the past couple of years I have had to work with IU Health. I will preface my remarks by saying there are a lot of fine people who work for IU Health: nurses, doctors, nurse practitioners, technicians and staff. The issue does not appear to be with these fine people, but with the current administration.

The current administration appears to have put profits ahead of patient care. This is crazy for a non-profit and the only reason I can think of is to support their bloated salaries. We have lost several doctors who were here a few years ago. One who was in private practice told me that IU Health offered him a job that he said he could not afford to take and told him they would not refer any patients to him if he did not accept. He left the state. Wonder why we seem to have a doctor shortage?

More in opinion: Lawmakers should act to dismantle Indiana not-for-profit hospital monopolies

How many of you have tried to call into an office and found the phone was not answered? I had to go in person to an office to get an answer to a question and was told that it was not uncommon to wait more than 20 minutes, apparently because the call center was understaffed, probably because they couldn't get people to work for the wages offered. Many, if not most, of the offices are understaffed, probably for the same reason.

If you need to see a specialist, plan on several weeks, if not months, before you can see one and even then you might have to travel to Indianapolis. This would not be completely unreasonable for a highly skilled specialist, but weeks or months to see a urologist, podiatrist or a dermatologist seems unreasonable. I believe because IU Health would not pay market rates for their services, we are left with less experienced, newer doctors who have too many local ties to the community to escape IU Health's chokehold.

I am not sure how to best attack this issue, but clearly action needs to be taken to wake up IU Health's administration and let them know that you need to show with action that you put patients first, not just give lip service to the policy. I would encourage others to write and suggest how we can better control this monopoly and push them to serve patients rather than the administration.

RJ Myers is a fifth generation resident of Monroe County, a retired and rewired Cook engineer and part time grumpy old man.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Guest writer suggests IU Health is to blame for lack of doctors