Striving to avert what it fears would be a duplication of services in the town’s two hospitals, Mid Coast Health Services soon will be filing a competing Certificate of Need to partner with Parkview Adventist Medical Center.

The filing, which will be issued to the state, will counter a submission made last week by Lewiston-based Central Maine Healthcare. CMHC, which has loaned Parkview $8.6 million, wants to assume governing authority over the 55-bed Brunswick facility.

Lois Skillings, president and chief executive officer at Mid Coast, said that the hospital is making its filing following meetings with community leaders regarding “how to best maintain highquality care at a time when the cost of health care is breaking the backs of small businesses and local residents.”

“Mid Coast’s proposal will call for the two hospitals to work together to create a new model of health-care delivery that would strengthen the local system and save the community more than $24 million a year,” Skillings continued. “Working together rather than divided, Mid Coast and Parkview could eliminate the costly duplication of many systems, facilities and expensive equipment. This in turn would help the local community begin to reverse the trend of rising health-care costs.”

Unless an extension is requested, the state Department of Health and Human Services should rule on the dueling certificates of need within 45 days. At least one public hearing will precede the ruling.

Parkview, meanwhile, looks forward to continuing its relationship with CMHC.

“We are now family members with them,” said Tory Ryden, director of marketing and community relations at Parkview. “We want to offer choices to the Brunswick community, and two hospitals would provide that. We want to continue to be a community hospital, but CMHC and its affiliate, Mass General can provide a higher level of health care.”

Officials at Mid Coast, however, say that this would be the smallest region in the Northeast trying to support two acute-care hospitals.

“Once CMHC takes legal control of Parkview, it is free to do whatever it takes to try to control our region’s health care,” said Steve Trockman, director of community relations and outreach at Mid Coast. “In a small region like ours, this will initiate a medical arms race that will serve no benefit to our community.”

Ryden, who emphasized that Parkview harbors no ill will toward Mid Coast, countered that “there’s plenty of room in the sand box for all of us to play.”

Not so, Trockman said.

“Allowing CMHC to operate Parkview as an acute-care hospital requires a substantial investment in administration, supplies, equipment, patient safety, information systems and other infrastructure costs,” he said. “Such unnecessary duplication raises the health-care costs for everyone in our community.”

Trockman takes exception to a statement made to The Times Record last week.

“Ms. Ryden asserts that ‘Mid Coast is doing everything it can to prevent us from operating,’” he said. “This assertion is completely unfounded and blatantly false. On the contrary, Mid Coast Hospital would like to partner with Parkview Adventist Medical Center to strengthen health care in our community. The division between our two hospitals has gone on too long. It is time for our community to heal our health-care system.”

Skillings says that Mid Coast is in a strong financial position to take on a merger with Parkview.

“Mid Coast’s careful planning and sound financial actions have helped the organization remain financially stable and solvent at a time when others have struggled,” she said. “The Certificate of Need proposal from Mid Coast addresses the fact that the rising cost of health care is breaking the back of our economy.”

lgrard@timesrecord.com