Dear Editor:

I have followed the Lincoln County Heathcare proposals and cannot agree with them.

The recent Mark Fourre article, “The nature of emergency medicine” with his memory of a dead infant is so absurd that it sent me over the top.

His comments offer no explanation of how this is connected to why the Boothbay region will be better off with less than 24/7 healthcare. This frightens me as I expect a “learned” person to make persuasive arguments and decisions based on clearly laid out premises.

Fourre goes on to say that prevention is a better way to resolve health issues. This is absolutely true and is nothing new.

Premise 1: Healthcare in the Boothbay region should benefit the majority of the people in the region. Premise 2: Keeping 24/7 services at St. Andrews benefits very few members of the community and loses money.

Conclusion: Therefore we should not keep St. Andrews open 24/7 as we need the money to “fund” LCH's vision of enhanced primary care.

The Boothbay Region Health and Wellness Foundation and I agree with the first premise, but LCH does not have the infrastructure to deliver the “healthcare model” Mark Fourre presented.

My years of experience with the Nordic and other healthcare systems is where each local community decides how it will focus its health and social care professionals working together to deliver care in conjunction with the general practitioner.

Most importantly, they provide access to healthcare for everyone 24/7. The LCH board has disrespected us by not taking into account our needs.

Most of the Nordic countries do not have the type of “trauma” centers that Mark Fourre was talking about last March, but they use regular GPs and anesthesiologists to man their around-the-clock services. They would not propose that an ambulance equipped with an EMT and iPad is better than a doctor.

Please join the Boothbay Health and Wellness Foundation at 7 p.m. on September 21 at the Boothbay Railway Museum for a discussion about what we determine our health and wellness needs for our community to be.

Jeannie M. Hamrin
Boothbay