I am concerned about the recent proposal for Central Maine Medical Center to formally take over administration of Parkview Hospital. In these belt-tightening and increasing health-care cost times, the CMMC takeover seems counter intuitive when we already have a financially solvent hospital in town – Midcoast, which Parkview could collaborate with. Brunswick does not have the population base to support two full-service 24/7 hospitals. If CMMC is successful in taking over Parkview it is likely that even more Bath-Brunswick area patients will be transferred to Lewiston for cardiac, cancer and other complex treatment procedures than is already happening.

I would like to see health-care decisions continue to be managed locally between Parkview and Midcoast hospitals. In my opinion, the only way for our community to continue to keep health-care costs down, reduce duplicate services and keep our quality local health care, is for the two hospitals to become partners in providing medical services to our community, not be in competition with one another. In such a collaboration, each hospital could excel at what they do best and maintain their individual identities, but together they would reduce redundant services and overall costs to our community. In talking with people who have lived in Brunswick for many years, there was a time about 10 years ago when both hospitals worked together and referred patients to one another. Let’s resurrect this spirit of cooperation so that we all win.

Diane Friese
Brunswick


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