My father was a Canyon Country resident for most of his life. He also suffered multiple heart attacks and a stroke. Every time, an ambulance had to fight its way across town to get him to Henry Mayo.
In those moments, minutes are the difference between a full recovery and permanent damage. Between coming home and not coming home at all.
Thankfully, in those instances he made it. Not everyone does.
I think about that every time I see another story about a sheriff's deputy blocking an intersection so an ambulance can get through, or a helicopter called because the roads were too slow. More often than not, those stories involve a child.
My daughter spends time at her grandmother's house in Canyon Country. I think about what happens if something goes wrong during rush hour. Whether the ambulance gets there in time. Whether the road is clear. Whether the minutes are enough.
That's not a hypothetical I'm willing to accept as inevitable.
These aren't emergencies happening in remote areas that require a helicopter to access. They're happening in Canyon Country, in a city with a quarter-million people, because we have one hospital and it's on the wrong side of town for a significant portion of our residents.
Henry Mayo does remarkable work with the resources it has. But it doesn't have the capital to build a second facility, and private healthcare companies don't have the economic incentive to invest in a community our size. That's not a criticism. It's a market reality, and it means the solution has to start with us.
What I'll Do
The city owns tools that haven't been used for this purpose. There is land along Soledad Canyon Road that could be acquired by the city, donated toward the cause, or made available to regional partners who can help finance what we cannot build alone. A full hospital is a long-term project. But securing the land, building the regional coalition, and creating the conditions for a facility to exist on the east side, that work can start now, with the right person at the table.
I've spent my career building things that solve problems nobody else wanted to tackle. This is the one that feels most personal. And it's the one I'm most committed to seeing through.