Parkview here to stay

Parkview Adventist Medical Center is proud of the quality of care we have offered Brunswick and the surrounding communities since 1959.

For over a decade, we have had a strong working relationship with Central Maine Healthcare that has supported our mission to help people get well and stay well.

We want to continue that relationship because we care about our patients and our communities. The Maine Department of Health and Human Services is reviewing Parkview’s plan to join CMHC.

Parkview, just like 12 other Maine community hospitals over the last 15 years, believes our future is best served by joining a health system. Working together with CMHC — every day for more than ten years — has shown us the benefits: we are able to enhance quality, expand services and lower costs.

Unfortunately, Mid-Coast Hospital is fighting our plan to join CMHC. We have been barraged by attacks, innuendos and outright misstatements of fact.

Time and time again we have said no to Mid Coast’s so-called “consolidation of services plan” which is simply Mid Coast’s latest proposal to buy out and eliminate Parkview.

The leadership of Mid-Coast Hospital still refuses to take no for an answer.

Let’s be clear. Mid Coast really wants Parkview to close thus eliminating healthcare choice in the Brunswick area. We cannot let this happen.

Healthcare is a very personal decision. Our patients choose Parkview and Parkview providers for a reason — they love our hospital and the care we give them.

People are telling us they want and deserve to continue to receive their care at Parkview.

Our staff is already spending time reassuring concerned patients that their ongoing care will not be compromised by this needless community upheaval.

Yet, Mid Coast continually attempts to ignore these voices, limit their choices and dictate their decisions. At Parkview, we instead seek to build bridges, not put up walls, around our communities.

Choice, as we know, is very important to Mainers. CMHC helped to recruit primary care and specialist physicians to our community bringing more choices while improving local access to care.

CMHC also kept hospital choice available with improved quality and lower costs in the Bridgton and Rumford regions. And, they will help us to do the same in our area.

With a focus on exceptional quality, Parkview continues to make progress in lowering our costs. CMHC is the lowest cost health system in Maine. We are actively engaged with CMHC in implementing strategies and initiatives that will help us achieve the distinction of becoming one of the lowest cost hospitals in the entire State.

We care, too, about our Parkview employees who keep our facilities running day in and day out. Parkview provides good paying jobs, and our hospital is an important part of the Brunswick economy.

Parkview’s core, faith-based values of caring and compassion strive to treat each individual as the unique person he or she is. CMHC understands that special approach to care and embraces it. In fact, CMHC encourages Parkview to continue on its faith-based path.

Area residents are reaching out to us in an outpouring of support. We appreciate your encouragement as we move through the state’s review of our plan. Please know that we will continue to be there to serve our communities.

Parkview will not be sold to Mid Coast…that decision is final.

Parkview will not close.

We will be a better hospital as part of the CMHC system.

We are proud of our past and look forward to a bright future of working with our CMHC colleagues. Parkview is committed to carrying on.

Thank you to our communities for your tremendous support.

MIKE ORTEL is chairman and DAN DAGGETT is vice chairman of the Parkview Adventist Medical Center Board of Directors.

Mid Coast is local care

There is talk in the neighborhood about the fate of our Brunswick hospitals, and well there should be.

I’m a native whose family goes back eight generations in the Mid-coast region. I was born and raised in Bath and honored to serve my country in the Navy.

Upon completion of my three years of duty, I returned to my hometown to help run our family’s sawmill. Now, I’m fortunate to serve my community in various ways, including being involved in decisions about our local health care system and its future viability.

We are living in the smallest community in New England being served by two acute-care hospitals. One of them is thriving. Unfortunately, the other is struggling. Both are working to keep the lights on, the operating rooms ready, and the dedicated staff available for round-theclock emergencies.

Yet on any given week, there is a 60 percent combined occupancy rate at our two hospitals, which means a lot of lost revenue from all the empty beds.

When you stop to think about it, the future might look a bit bleak for the hospital industry as health care shifts from an inpatient and illness business to one more centered on outpatient care and disease prevention.

All over our country, there are changes being made to promote wellness and healthy living, which appears to be an excellent model for bringing down health care costs. But it poses problems for hospitals with their fixed costs and expensive technology.

Here in Mid-coast Maine, we’re lucky to have excellent doctors and nurses to care for us. Because our region is culturally and intellectually enriched, we’re able to attract high-quality specialists to serve our population. But in our small community, it is important to understand that, in order to maintain these services — cardiology, urology, neurology, pulmonology, obstetrics and gynecology — there needs to be a critical mass of patients to keep these specialists busy, and available to us when we need them.

Mid Coast Hospital has been strategic in its planning for the future of health care by attracting these wonderful doctors. And this organization has invested significantly in making health care more affordable and accessible by building a downtown Brunswick walk-in clinic.

The effort to modernize health care and provide easier access to doctors is paying off. Urgent care visits are up. Emergency visits — which cost a lot more — are down. And work continues as our local doctors are embracing their responsibility to keep patients and families healthy, and thus out of the hospital.

We know our community hospital is serving us well, as Mid Coast has been recognized as among the best, safest and most cost-effective hospitals in Maine — something in which our community should take pride.

With the attempted takeover of Parkview Adventist Medical Center by Central Maine Health Care, however, we may well see the apple cart upset.

The fact that Parkview has been losing money and has not been able to maintain services should tell us something: Our region cannot financially support two acute-care hospitals, which is CMHC’s goal if they are granted a Certificate of Need by the state.

Rather than having this Lewiston-based organization take control of our health care decisions, those of us who live and work here would be better served if our two local hospitals, our doctors and nurses, worked together in partnership.

Together we can maintain local care and take bold steps to expand wellness services such as nutrition, primary care, and rehabilitation.

Allowing this takeover would perpetuate an outdated and expensive model of health care delivery. Before making such a decision, the community must fully understand that the Mid Coast proposal will eliminate more than $24 million every year in hospital costs. Such savings are important to our local economy.

CMHC, a reputable organization, has their own work to do in their region of the state. Yet those of us entrusted to watch over our community-owned Mid Coast Hospital, and to help make prudent financial decisions in the best interest of those who live and work in the Bath, Brunswick, Topsham area, know that CMHC’s plan to treat our friends and neighbors in another county will cost our community dearly.

The specialty care we enjoy close to home will suffer, and our small community will pay for costly duplication of services. We simply cannot afford to allow CMHC to take patients from our community health care system.

JOHN MORSE is chairman of the Mid Coast Health Services Board of Directors.