Dear Editor:

LCH/MaineHealth is trying to steal our valuable Critical Access Hospital (CAH) designation, transferring it to Miles. This would require downsizing hospital beds to just 25 for the entire region of 55,000 (seasonal). This will reduce the number of beds in Lincoln County from already low 1.36 beds/1,000 (permanent residents) – vs. 2.7 overall in Maine – to ~0.45 during the tourist season, on par with Pakistan (0.6) and Afghanistan (0.4).

Corporate propaganda states, “LCH’s mission is to ensure access to high-quality, patient-centered and affordable health care to the people of our region…” and “Maintain an integrated not-for-profit, community-owned, comprehensive delivery system … from prevention and health maintenance through tertiary services, rehabilitation, chronic care and long-term care.” (MaineHealth)

How does closing a community’s hospital and ER, forcing elderly residents to go off peninsula for care, improve the community’s care?

LCH/MaineHealth have breached community trust, focusing on their own profit at the expense of the community’s well-being. They bear responsibility for raising our taxes, reducing our real estate values, and hurting our local economy.

LCH spreads untruths, like insisting St. Andrews is “losing money,” when annual net gains have averaged $455,000/yr. (past 11 years). LCH says the ER closure will have little impact when, in fact, 390-542 patients with true emergencies (Level 1-3, needing care in less than 1 hour) would need to be transferred out annually, over hazardous roads, just during hours the proposed urgent care center would be closed.

I predict, within one to two years, MaineHealth will close the urgent care “bone” they have tossed Boothbay, saying it is not adequately utilized, and will close Miles.

LCH is deluding itself to think that most care from Boothbay will go to Miles after the hospital here is closed. Patients will head to MidCoast or perhaps to Lewiston or Portland for more serious problems. Shamefully, there were other options for maintaining quality that were not adequately explored. They chose not to, seemingly hell-bent on closing St. Andrews.

I – and many others here – hope that the various agencies that need to grant approval for this plan will deny it.

Judy Stone, MD
Boothbay Harbor

Excerpted, with permission, from Molecules To Medicine, Scientific American