Dear Editor:

It’s August 1, the “two month anniversary” until St. Andrews Hospital's emergency room closes.

If you want emergency attention locally after most of us are asleep, you’d better do it soon because after October 1, you’ll be packed in an ambulance and shipped to Damariscotta, or even further ... and if a couple of others had their emergency earlier that evening, the ambulances could already be off the peninsula and you may have to fend for yourself.

Don’t expect someone else to solve this problem. Contact your local LCHC board members who we thought were protecting us from this terrible turn of events. These “community leaders” are being amazingly quiet as the clock ticks down to October 1. Remind them that your citizens unequivocally voted in favor of keeping the hospital open. Nobody wants this closure, yet it’s happening.

Read the July 23rd Portland Sunday Telegram story about this situation. Then go to Maine.gov and let your local, state and federal officials know that you don’t want to be the poster child for future small hospital closings in Maine.

Despite the donations you made for the St. Andrews equipment that quietly found its way to Miles in a seemingly orchestrated effort to make your hospital look less than viable, St. Andrews still reported a profit of $282,000 during the 2012 fiscal year! LCHC and MaineHealth admit their communication has been inexcusable, yet St. Andrews’ 2010 fiscal report is the most recent available on LCHC’s website. What do they have in store for the region in the future? It’s never really clear what they are up to, so this closure should be stopped ... or at least delayed until we find out.

Just imagine yourself in an ambulance sliding up the River Road in the middle of the night in mid-December. If that’s not what you want, you’ve only got two months to act.

Much of your equipment’s gone. Now they are about to give away your hospital’s license to Miles. St. Andrews Hospital, as we all have known it, will then disappear … forever.

This shouldn’t have to happen.

Nick Hurd
Southport summer resident