Editor’s note: The Frontier is looking back at some of its most memorable stories of the past decade as it counts down to its 10th anniversary celebration 6 p.m. April 29 at the Tulsa Central Library.
Five years ago, COVID-19 first arrived in Oklahoma.
An emergency declaration and stay-at-home orders were issued soon after. Statewide, Oklahomans accustomed to the office 9-to-5 suddenly worked from home. Grocery store shelves were near-wiped clean of necessities. And hospitals were quickly filling to capacity, with demand for beds and ventilators far exceeding the available supply.
Kassie McClung, a reporter for The Frontier at the time, remembers the moment former Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum and Dr. Bruce Dart, executive director of the Tulsa Health Department, announced the first confirmed case of the virus in Tulsa.
“It just felt really surreal,” McClung recounted. “You could tell something was shifting.”
What followed was a desperate search for answers among a maze of uncertainty and misinformation. Reporters for The Frontier made open records requests, called officials and spoke with experts to source the truth and share it with the public.
At its core, McClung said the pandemic was an accountability story.
Through her reporting, McClung revealed a lack of transparency in state dealings when government officials refused to publicly disclose the names of businesses from which they purchased around $80 million worth of personal protective equipment, such as gloves and respirators. This came as reports of questionable transactions and fraud pinged across the country.
Because of her reporting, the state released the information on pandemic supply vendors. Other Frontier reports also resulted in the release of data on outbreaks in nursing homes and information about when COVID-related deaths occurred.
McClung and Brianna Bailey, managing editor for The Frontier, later reported how COVID-19 ran rampant in a state prison where social distancing was “a joke” and testings weren’t mandatory for inmate transfers. More than 580 women had tested positive for the virus at the Dr. Eddie Warrior Correctional Center in Taft, which at the time housed more than 800 prisoners. COVID-19 testing is still not required for inmate transfers, an Oklahoma Department of Corrections spokesperson told The Frontier.
And as the coronavirus spread across the state, rural hospitals struggled to meet demand for services. Rural EMS responders drove patients up to 45 miles to metro hospitals for care, McClung and Bailey reported. Bailey also partnered with ProPublica on a series of stories detailing failing rural hospitals’ desperate attempts to keep their doors open. Several of the hospitals made “a deal with the devil” by putting their fate in the hands of for-profit companies. But instead of salvation, the hospitals found new lows and deeper debt.
Five years later, a report from the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform suggests 60% of Oklahoma’s rural hospitals are at risk of closing because of financial problems, with 24 at immediate risk of closure. Oklahoma currently has 78 open rural inpatient hospitals, according to the report. Pauls Valley Regional Medical Center — one of the struggling hospitals included in Bailey’s reports — had closed in October 2018. After reopening for about four years, the hospital shut its doors once again in January of this year.
“What stood out to me during that time, and still sticks with me, is just how powerful local journalism can be, especially when keeping those in power accountable,” McClung said. “The public was able to get access to information they would not have had if we wouldn’t have reported on it.”
