Maine Attorney General Janet Mills has handed down her decision not to intervene in Lincoln County Healthcare's plan to close St. Andrews’ ER in Boothbay Harbor. In a letter to Rep. Bruce MacDonald, she affirmed that she and her staff had “received and reviewed voluminous documents. We have met with members of the St. Andrews Task Force and with other concerned individuals a number of times.”

All of us who have worked with Attorney General Mills thank her for her diligent work on our behalf and, though disappointed at the outcome, agree with her when she says, “St. Andrews is a very important and beloved community asset, and many members of the local community are genuinely upset with the proposed changes.”

Frankly, we are surprised by Mills' decision not to intervene in Lincoln County Healthcare's plan to close St. Andrews’ ER in Boothbay Harbor and to move all patient beds to Damariscotta.

The trustees of St. Andrews and the trustees of Lincoln County Healthcare have a fiduciary obligation to respect all the interests of the people served by St. Andrews. Those interests not only include fast emergency care and convenient local healthcare, but also not raising our taxes and decreasing our real estate values.

The evidence that the people, whose interests are supposed to be looked out for by the Trustees, want them to keep St. Andrews Hospital and ER open was that 86 percent of the voters in all four towns recently voted to keep St. Andrews Critical Access Hospital status.

This is not a question of a group of people being upset that their hospital is being closed. We believe that our legal interests are being ignored and trampled upon.

The Boothbay Region Health and Wellness Foundation will continue its efforts to keep St. Andrews Hospital open 24/7. We also want to reassure the year-round and seasonal residents that we will do as much as we can to ensure that affordable and accessible 24-hour healthcare is available to all, and that our peninsula has the healthiest and happiest people in Maine.

We encourage all our year-round and seasonal residents to support the work of the Wellness Foundation on their behalf.

The Foundation would like to thank the nearly 2,000 people who signed and sent petitions to the Attorney General's office in support of keeping St. Andrews Hospital open with a 24/7 Emergency Room.

Thank you, especially to Jane B. Good for carrying out the petition-writing campaign and to Marie Snow for all of her help. We also want to thank all the local businesses that promoted the petitions, and the many business people who support keeping St. Andrews Hospital open because they know how vital it is to attracting year-round retirees to our peninsula.