Dear Editor:

When my husband and I became involved in the hospital crisis, we did so because we believed strongly in the cause. During the past few months I have heard over and over again that we live in the oldest state in the oldest county in the oldest community in the country. I am one of those people. I just decided to deal with it in relation to myself and reality.

St. Andrews board members, on the other hand, probably don't view themselves as ever being in that category, and so are grateful that the medical community has made it possible for us all to stay out of the hospital by taking care of ourselves and our health while we are well-the result being that we are living well in to our 80s, 90s and beyond.

The only flaw in that thinking, from my point of view, is that we all will leave this world sometime and that none of us knows exactly when. Where I live at the independent apartments, people instinctively turn to the ER during the evening hours when no one is on the staff at the village. We do not expect St. Andrews Hospital to be all things to all people, but at the very least in a real end of life emergency, they can access the system 24 hours a day at a nearby hospital.

I believe, at this point, it is a moral issue and that it could be solved by having access to emergency care 24/7 here on the Boothbay peninsula. These are the people who live here and they are scared because they have been put in this position by you, the trustees; so I am asking the trustees, in spite of the fact that “their pockets are deeper than ours,” to reconsider and find a morally acceptable way to make this happen.

Shirley Jameson
Boothbay Harbor