This is a note to the suits who quarterback Maine Health.

I know I have been a pain in the tush as I opposed, and will continue to oppose, your decision to close the Miles L & D unit. One of the jobs of a local newspaper is to amplify the wishes of our readers. And, to put it lightly, our readers (who are also your customers) wish you would reverse your edict. You should do it for no other reason than that it is hurting the stellar reputation you have earned through years of dedicated service to Lincoln County.

Believe me, I am a fan of Maine Health and Miles. Not long ago, I danced around the room with one of the bad bugs you talk about. Absent the skills of your docs, nurses and the rest, I would have knocked on St.Peter’s door.

Today, as I write this tome, I am sitting in one of your Miles rooms after meeting one of the pitfalls associated with the “golden years,” OMFD. To the younger generation, those letters translate to Old Man Falls Down.

Yes, I tumbled off a card table chair and fell on a hard floor doing something, I know not what, triggering a major league owie in my left hip. What the actual diagnosis is up to the docs and their magic scanning devices. I can report that I have been treated with respect and the utmost professionalism. From radiology techs, smiling nurses, skilled docs and the wonderful CNAs, I found them to be pros who really care about their patients.

As I watched your earlier (pre-closure) listening sessions, where your customers pleaded with you to delay or erase your decision to close your OB unit, it was clear folks love you. Mothers and mothers-to-be heaped praise on how much they appreciated the caring skills they found in your little hospital on the bay. As your customers revealed to the male-dominated world the traumatic events associated with the process of bringing babies into a family, their concerns about forcing them to drive to Brunswick or Rockland to deliver merit a lot of consideration.

And, they deserve more than a flip acknowledgment that these highly are emotional arguments and don’t trump the hard business decisions behind the closures. Highly emotional? Surely that is not a code word for men know better?

Surely the trustees who studied the red fiscal numbers know the nation’s OB units operate at a loss. If it is a money problem, shouldn’t you find more, or cut somewhere else? The halls of your Lincoln Health Miles Hospital are decorated with the names of wealthy and powerful patrons who have forked over vast fortunes to help you help us survive.

Those whizz-bang imaging devices that peek into our gizzards and reveal what is really going on are hugely expensive to install and use. They replace the informed guesses that once propelled docs to medicate, operate, or otherwise treat us all. Science always trumps the educated guess. At least it should, especially when it involves going into the complexities of our innards. Our nation is reexamining the strange complex dance we call our health care system.

It involves way more than who pays the bill. Many of the decisions will be made by our elderly political leaders, many of whom can’t operate their smartphones, much less understand the complex relationship involving big Pharma, benefit managers, and hundreds of others who have a piece of the action in the zillion-dollar health care game, including those, like you, who captain little rural hospitals.

As you balance the numbers, staff ratios, regulations, personalities and egos, please don’t forget why you are here in the first place. That is to serve your customers, to make them feel a bit better when they walk out the door into the parking lot.

From all reports, you do a great job at that, but I fear trouble is ahead. If you are perceived as ignoring your customers, they could react and demand the system change to accommodate their concerns.

As the nation’s demographics squeeze budgets, hospital officials are eliminating their OB units; they perform a stupid act my old Marine Corps pals called “fouling their own mess kits.”

Here in rural Maine, there is time to change the course, to work together, and find a way to avoid the solution no one wants to make. Listening to your customers is always a good move. Offering the services they demand is better. That leads to common-sense situations where everyone wins. 

And we all want to be winners. Right?