It’s been months since Lincoln County Healthcare announced its plans to close the St. Andrews Hospital acute care facility as we know it, and to reduce our emergency room to daytime only service, undermining the real purpose of an emergency room in the first place.

In the interim, we’ve listened to multiple reasons for these decisions were made and we still don’t believe they were justified.

We all understand that healthcare costs are going up an alarming rate, not only for the consumer but for the medical facilities responsible for providing the services.

Several years ago, when Miles Memorial Hospital and St. Andrews Hospital first began discussing ways in which they could work together to save money, it initially made good sense. That was before, however, we began to see that the cooperative venture was apparently destined to benefit Miles and leave St. Andrews in the dust.

We soon began to resent the fact that few, if any, of these cost-saving moves seemed to strengthen St. Andrews.

When our operating room with its modern equipment was shifted to Miles, we couldn’t help but wonder why St. Andrews was never the headquarters for any of the consolidated services; it was always Damariscotta.

We were told that the decision to close St. Andrews to “regular’’ patients (we know, they keep reminding us that it’s not really closing, only changing its type of services) was because St. Andrews was no longer profitable and had experienced several years of losses.

If that was justification for closing down our 100-year-old hospital, then lots of others in the state would be gone, too, including Miles, which I believe has had bad years, too.

In fact, if memory serves us right, the first time Miles seriously suggested St. Andrews join forces with them years ago to save money, it was Miles that was in financial trouble, not St. Andrews.

The financial gurus who have looked at St. Andrews' income and loss record maintain that it’s in trouble, refusing to take into consideration that the St. Andrews board made investments years ago to plan for those bad years.

We think such foresight was admirable and designed to give us built-in protection when we needed it.

St. Andrews also has always had another security blanket: the commitment of the community.

Tell the townspeople you’ve had a rough year and need to raise money and see what happens. They come through with generous donations. This type of community support is rare. In our opinion, Miles doesn’t have it and never has.

If St. Andrews was in trouble and a huge fundraiser was necessary to put it back on its feet, it would have only taken a word to that effect to have made a difference, especially before all of its services were moved up off the peninsula.

We feel badly that in the efforts in recent years to combine services with Miles, St. Andrews lost its own board of trustees, with a singular board now responsible for overseeing both facilities. It was not a good move.

The age-old argument that people get better care in larger hospitals has two sides.

Of course, if you’ve got a serious illness you will no doubt want to seek out the specialists at a larger hospital. Combining forces with Miles won’t change that; they don’t have the medical experts, either. When it comes to quality care, i.e. our nursing staff, St. Andrews has always (that’s always) been a shining example of how to treat any patient.

There’s no doubt about it; Maine’s larger hospitals are hell-bent on eating up all of the smaller ones. It’s a dog fight with everyone competing for patients.

In our opinion, it’s the small hospitals like St. Andrews that stand the best chance of surviving in today’s world. It’s frustrating, to say the least, that despite the wishes and efforts of this entire peninsula, we may be destined to lose something so vital to our community.

Unfortunately, those making the decisions just don’t get it.