PALM SPRINGS, Calif. — This desert resort town some 100 miles east of Los Angeles, in the sprawling Coachella Valley, is known for many things: Its spectacular setting, nestled next to towering Mount San Jacinto; its vibrant gay and lesbian community (fully 100 percent of the City Council identifies as LGBT); and its midcentury modern architecture. It’s also known, perhaps above all, as a haven for old people: The median age here is about 54, compared with 36 for the rest of California.
The age skew certainly has positive effects—crime, for example, is very low—but also presents its own challenges. For example, geriatric populations have their own unique medical needs, and require a robust physician population to support them. But for myriad reasons, the area has long suffered from a dearth of physicians: “Some pockets of Coachella Valley have one physician for every 9,000 patients, whereas the normal ratio [throughout the country] is one physician for every 2,000,” says Dr. Gemma Kim, a physician here. The result? Either endure long waits to see physicians, or travel far to an area with more of them—not necessarily an easy task for older people. The other option, of course, is to forgo necessary medical care.
This shortage is not unique to Palm Springs. The entire surrounding county of Riverside—with 2. 4 million people it is the 11th largest in the nation—is suffering from a doctor shortage and it is affecting every segment of the county’s demographically varied and rapidly growing population. The county, which boasts a bumper crop of distribution centers for companies such as Target and Amazon, piled on 644,000 new residents in the 2000s. But the county is little more than a vast bedroom community, with scant economic development of its own. Residents endure long commutes into Los Angeles or Orange County simply because housing is so much more affordable out here. As one local resident put it to me, “Often, when I ask people why they moved here, it’s the same story. They drove east from Los Angeles and stopped as soon as they could buy a home.”
[For more on this story, go to https://www.politico.com/magaz...nnial-doctors-216475]
Comments (0)