Hospital system overwhelmed

[Spongebob]

Not sure this is the right place for this thread.  I don't think this is a political issue but maybe it is.  I was just reading an article about how overwhelmed our hospitals are with covid patients.  Some are having to turn away patients with other, very serious, conditions because they are simply full.  It highlights the fact that our system probably has not grown proportionately with population growth.  I live in a town with one huge hospital and a second much smaller one.  No new hospitals have opened up in a while.  Our population is around 250,000 if you count the surrounding area.  The nearest towns have small hospitals there as well but nothing new and no expansion in decades.  It seems like the hospitals here are always dealing with space issues, even before covid.  We also have a VA clinic but its tiny.  It seems like a metro area this size could support more hospitals.  I don't think a hospital running near capacity is a good thing.  There's always the possibility of a surge in patients from some unexpected disease or catastrophe.