What the rural health care crisis looks like in one Alabama town.

From Marketplace, I'm Kimberly Adams. According to the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment

Reform, there are about 700 hospitals at risk of closure in rural communities around the U.S.

25 of those hospitals are in Alabama, a state already familiar with that risk, and what

happens to a community when it becomes a reality.

So this is wild.

There's still the paper on the exam chair.

It's almost as if we're walking through just early in the morning before it's about to open.

This is the Thomasville Regional Medical Center, or perhaps we should say was, because right now,

the bright reception areas, brand new surgery facilities, and the only in-house MRI machine for dozens of miles are all empty.

Good morning, Mr. Mayor. Nice to meet you.

Thank you so much for meeting us today. I appreciate it.

Sheldon Day, the mayor of Thomasville, is our tour guide.

We're about an hour and a half north of Mobile in Alabama's 7th Congressional District,

an area with some of the lowest life expectancies in the entire country,

which is why Day says Thomasville needs its hospital.

We have a primary care clinic here with all the bells and whistles.

We were the only hospital in the region that did 3D digital mammograms.

The only thing you're missing is patients.

The medical center closed in 2024, less than five years after it opened.

The COVID-19 pandemic was a major factor.

Like so many hospitals around the country, Thomasville Regional shut down elective and non-essential care,

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