On a hot June day, as the Good Ol’ Days Festival was in full swing, 7-year-old Kaidence Anderson sat in the shade with her family waiting for a medevac helicopter to land.
A crowd had gathered to see the display pre-arranged by staff at the town’s historic fort.
“It’s going to show us how it’s going to help other people because we don’t have the hospital anymore,” the redheaded girl explained.
Mercy Hospital Fort Scott closed at the end of 2018, leaving this rural community about 90 miles south of Kansas City without a traditional hospital. The community has outpatient clinics run by a regional nonprofit health center and — at least temporarily — an emergency department operated as a satellite of a hospital in the next town over.
(Read more: Rural Messenger)