To the Editor:

Since 1959, Parkview Hospital has provided excellent medical and nursing care in our community, working with Mid Coast Hosital to meet the health care needs of families from Freeport to Richmond to the islands off the shores of Harpswell, Bath and Wiscasset.

Now, however; Parkview is not attracting sufficient numbers of patients to maintain a positive cash flow, while Mid Coast is growing in both inand outpatient care.

New specialist and primary care physicians, nurses and emergency room hospitalists are providing up-to-date preventative, acute care and rehabilitative services to a regional population of 77,000 persons.

It is evident to me that Parkview cannot continue to function as a full-service hospital. Indeed, Central Maine Medical Center, a large, tertiary hospital in Lewiston, is trying to take over Parkview entirely, supplying financial, administrative and medical services.

Ambulances now transport seriously ill patients to Lewiston several times a day, a distance of 30 to 40 miles. Many of CMMC’s physicians, stationed at Parkview, order tests to be done in Lewiston, when those same tests could be done here at Mid Coast Hospital, at much lower costs to our families.

I wonder why CMMC wants to expand its borders so far from Lewiston. This competition for patient care seems ridiculous and unnecessary, as Mid Coast Hospital is a mere five miles away from Parkview.

I certainly would not want to drive all the way to Lewiston to visit my ill relation or accompany my loved one there for laboratory tests. The costs to me in terms of time, energy and dollars would be prohibitive.

I’d like to see Parkview Hospital and Mid Coast Hospital form a working partnership to meet our population’s health care needs for the next 50 years. Parkview could become a superior facility in preventative and rehabilitative services while Mid Coast could continue to provide state of the art in-hospital patient care, including their expanding maternity and pediatric departments.

How reassuring it would be if all of our health care needs could be met within the Brunswick area.

Julia D. Stevens
Harpswell