Appreciating quality healthcare close to home

For Baptist Health Foundation Hardin Board vice chair Marilyn Ford, a high level of hospital care available right where you live is a blessing.

“Access to good healthcare is so very important to individuals and families,” says Marilyn, “but it is also important to our overall community.”

Having grown up in rural Russell Springs, Kentucky, Marilyn knows what it means to live in an area without easy accessibility to strong hospital facilities. She saw how leaving home for healthcare meant added stress from travel expenses and being away from family.

As a board member, Marilyn is committed to seeing high-level healthcare available to all. “When I saw the things that Baptist Health Foundation Hardin was helping to bring to our local hospital that provided benefits to permit patients to have access to care without traveling, I knew that it was a very worthy cause,” she says.

Marilyn moved to Elizabethtown after she married her husband, Randy, more than 40 years ago. She’s worked locally in banking — in the same building, but not the same bank — for her entire career. Currently the city president of WesBanco Bank’s Heartland Region, Marilyn provides philanthropic support on both personal and professional levels granting her perspective on hospital access from an economic standpoint, too.

“It’s also a quality-of-life issue that affects our economy,” she explains. “Employers looking to locate in this region are looking at healthcare access as one of the decision factors in that possible relocation.”

Marilyn’s own experiences at Baptist Health — from outpatient procedures and inpatient stays to the birth of her three grandchildren — have shown her local healthcare at its best. During her recent knee replacement surgery, she received “compassionate” and “exceptional” care from every hospital staff member she encountered.