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Dear Editor, I have worked as a nurse in Kingston for the past 14 years, and am very concerned that the impending "affiliation" between Kingston and Benedictine Hospitals will put "women's reproductive services" in jeopardy. These essential services are often lumped together, and discussed as if they could be relocated out of Kingston Hospital into a separate unit without any impact on overall quality of care. Nothing could be further from the truth. Reproductive health care cannot be separated from general hospital care. Daily issues arise in the ER, OR, the Med Surg floor, the Maternity unit, and elsewhere in a hospital that require doctors and nurses to discuss issues such as birth control, condom use, HIV/AIDS, sexually transmitted diseases, abortions, vasectomies, fertility issues, tubal ligations, and end-of-life issues for the terminally ill. For example: I was taught in nursing school that an important part of giving excellent care to a newly postpartum mother is to warn her of the health risks of getting pregnant too quickly. I was also taught to suggest that she go on birth control immediately and to kindly share with her and her partner the contraceptive options available to her. Another example: Let's say I send one of my patients to the hospital ER with a suspected sexually transmitted disease. After an accurate diagnosis, I expect part of his/her treatment at the ER will include a conversation with my patient about having safer sex in the future that would include the use of condoms. Not doing so puts my patient and others in the community at great unnecessary risk in the future. Executives of our two local hospitals have assured the community that Kingston Hospital's services would remain as they are, but many 'devilish details' continue to haunt me. Why does there need to be a 'women's reproductive clinic' at a 'proximate location' if the services at Kingston Hospital will not become restricted by the Catholic directives that are in place at Benedictine? Why can't all services remain intact and on location at Kingston Hospital? Why is there such imbalance in the recently released Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) between Kingston and Benedictine hospitals, as pointed out by the Kingston Daily Freeman on Jan 21st? And I quote, "A section of the Memorandum of Agreement guarantees that the surviving form of Benedictine Hospital within this joint operation 'will conform' to Catholic principles. But there is, as yet, no written, equivalent guarantee that Kingston Hospital will deliver the 'full range of reproductive health services' that the state's Berger Commission says the arrangement will 'allow.' Without such an explicit guarantee or statement of mission (that would contain precise language naming all preserved services, I might add), the Memorandum of Agreement could be construed as effectively one-sided." The hospitals' new PR firm promised on Jan. 19 to develop a plan within the next three weeks that would allow for public comment. We are still waiting! These issues are far too critical for our community to sit back and wait passively to be invited into a process which thus far only includes decisions that come out of back rooms in dim light, and only include a few selected CEOs. Our community has formed a new group to address these issues and insist on protection of patients' rights and community access to care in Ulster County. We are called Health Care STAT and we're made up of men and women, both gay and straight, lawyers, doctors, nurses, social workers and community activists. This proposed hospital affiliation is coding and needs attention STAT! Jo Shuman, RN Myracle@aol.com Cottekill, NY 12419 845-687-0878 |
DAILY FREEMAN Kingston, NY Wed., Apr. 25, 2007 This is our decision Dear Editor: This is the way every woman's right to sovereignty over her own body, reproduction and sexuality is lost: Five well-meaning men, justices, have decided that they must 'protect' the morally deficient, unintelligent American citizen - female - from making a thoughtless decision about her own reproductive health. She might come to regret it. She is a child. This is a civil rights issue. It's about whose decision it is. I believe it's my decision. Your decision. Five male justices notwithstanding. On a day when the attorney general lost his authority in Gonzales v. U.S. Senate, the Supreme Court lost its authority over American women with its ruling on Gonzales v. Carhart. JULIE McQUAIN Hardenburgh jmprmedia@aol.com |
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Dear Editor: HOSPITAL REALIGNMENT CRISIS When a massive change in the delivery of medical services in our community is being planned, all significant stakeholders must be included in the deliberations. The realignment of Kingston and Benedictine hospitals into one financial alliance makes sense, but there cannot be "apartheid" of services, a segregation of services. Unfortunately, this is being planned as we speak. All concerned citizens need to be alerted to this developing crisis. There must be a full integration of legal non-sectarian medical services, procedures and practices within our medical facility. To deny the full availability of end-of-life, contraceptive counseling and reproductive rights would be a community tragedy. Not too long ago, our community spoke up and prevented the loss of health care services; we can do it again, but we need your help. If you would like to help to positively influence the new hospital realignment agreement contact Health Care STAT as soon as possible. Sam Magarelli Member of Health Care STAT (a not-for-profit guardian of patient rights, and access to care) 66 Plochmann Lane Woodstock New York 12498 679-2713 | |
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DAILY FREEMAN Kingston, NY Fri., May 4, 2007 FOOD FOR THOUGHT Imagine if a secular health care facility were to merge with one affiliated with Judaism or Islam or some other religion other than Christianity. I don't believe the average American would to too keen on the idea. Healthcare, like government, should remain secular. The religious beliefs of all Americans should be respected, but it's a 2-way street. If there is a merger, who should be making concessions? Like it or not, Roe v. Wade is still the law of the land. PATRICK LONG Kingston, NY |
Health fundamentals When religious fundamentalist extremists rule a country the people suffer. That's why the pilgrims came here. To escape religious persecution and have the freedom to practice whatever religion they chose. When religious fundamentalists dictate how health care may be practiced the people suffer, too. How would you feel if a religion that banned the killing of bacteria. like certain Buddhist sects, were to run your hospital? Benedictine forcing Kingston Hospital to segregate certain medical practices into a different building is wrong. It's also hazardous to our health both medically and economically. Unless the practices Benedictine finds so unacceptable are covered and protected by the same corporate and financial foundation as the rest of the hospital, they will be vulnerable to closure by pressure from religious fundamentalist extremists. I also wonder if Benedictine is doing as well financially as Kingston Hospital? Maybe if the merger goes through, Kingston should force Benedictine to do reproductive services too. Now do the Catholic extremists out there understand my point? Dave Channon Shandaken, NY |
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Dear Editor: We are finding the description of the Kingston-Benedictine affiliation somewhat inaccurate when it is described as one "mandated" by the Berger Commission. While that is true in a sense, what really happened is that the Berger Commission approved a merger plan designed by the hospitals. The hospitals completely excluded the community in coming up with the proposal and essentially had it written into law by the Berger Commission, knowing this was a plan many would oppose. These public meetings really are a charade. How can the public give input when all of the major decisions have already been made? Jo Shuman Millie Meyer Jane VanDeBogart Bonni Nechemias Anna Bates Susan Murphy Sam Magarelli [Health Care STAT members] | |
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DAILY FREEMAN Kingston, NY Fri., June 1, 2007 Rights of private ownership To the Editor: Regarding your story (May 25, 'Docs fight hospital's clinic plan'), the statement that we object to the plan to put a reproductive health clinic in the Medical Arts Condominium is inaccurate and misleading. The plan and our objection is the construction of an ambulatory surgery center. The difference between a reproductive health clinic and an ambulatory surgery center is enormous, and the citation of a reproductive health clinic demeans and politicizes our objection. An additional minor correction that has sent our employees searching is that the Medical Arts Building has no public restroom, not one. Without reference to our personal pro-choice and pro-life opinions, we object to the construction of an ambulatory surgery center in our condominium. The proposed center will occupy one floor of our four-floor building and will be equipped to perform at least 2,000 surgical procedures each year. In addition, an estimated 150 to 200 reproductive health services and procedures are planned to be done. Our concern does not relate to specific types of surgical procedures. In response to Kingston Mayor Sottile's statement, our condominium is structurally incapable of expansion or addition. Also, the adoption of any amendment that would diminish our basic mission to provide the people of Kingston access to specialized medical services of high quality would be unconscionable. Lacking in the expressed support for the Kingston Hospital's plan by both hospitals and pro-choice advocates is any level of sensitivity or appreciation of our contributions to quality health care in the region. That Dr. Cutgno, an oncologist, occupying the only unit on the third floor not scheduled for demolition, will be totally restrained from treating his cancer patients during months of construction has received no consideration in the hospital's plan. Similarly, the harmful impact on the practices of the region's leading providers in neurosurgery, dermatology and end stage renal disease has been totally discounted. We experience no joy in engaging in an expensive and troublesome David and Goliath conflict. It seems to us that our rights of private ownership are threatened by a force of eminent domain. For our own sake and that of the thousands of patients in our care, we have no choice but to do so. DR. KENNETH G. JOHNSON Kingston The writer is the spokesman for the Medical Arts Physicians Group. |
DAILY FREEMAN Kingston, NY Wed., May 30, 2007 Don't merge Dear Editor: I attended the Stone Ridge public meeting about the forced merger of the secular Kingston and Catholic Benedictine hospitals. Just about all of us didn't support this merger of two very different hospitals. I expect we all agree with ending the foolish competition between the hospitals, but I don't see why enforcing cooperation between hospitals in the same community must mean that they have to merge. Our two hospitals have tried five times to merge and couldn't, which might suggest that the merger of a secular hospital and a Catholic hospital shouldn't be attempted. I would not voluntarily go to a Catholic hospital, because my moral values about abortion, sterilization, condoms and living wills are different than those of the Catholic Church. So why will the Kingston Hospital complex be governed by moral values that I don't share? What will happen in the future when new technologies, such as using stem cells to grow new organs, are available, but not accepted by the Catholic Church? ANDI WEISS BARTCZAK Gardiner andiwbartczak@yahoo.com |
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DAILY FREEMAN Kingston, NY Tues., May 29, 2007 Both hospitals must remain open Dear Editor: By this time, most readers have heard of the rulings of the Berger Commission affecting hospitals and nursing homes in New York. Ostensibly designed to reform them and lower their costs of operation, its premise is so harmful to our already failing health care system, that it must be altered by the state Legislature lest it result in ever greater expenses for state residents. This commission has ordered Kingston and Benedictine hospitals to merge their operations by the end of 2007 or one of them will have to close. This was based on information dating back to 2003 and is no longer valid. According to a recent article in the Freeman, Kingston Hospital reported profits from $500,000 to $2 million for the past three years. But at public information meetings sponsored by the two hospitals, this information was not forthcoming. The problem of duplication of services at these hospitals can be settled by a simple agreement between them without the complicated and costly merger process, which will create another layer of bureaucracy without any gain to the health care of the patients. They are planning to build another ambulatory surgery unit in a nearby building to provide reproductive services because of the religious mandates of Benedictine Hospital. These services are already provided at Kingston Hospital. Does it make sense to spend the extra millions of dollars it will cost to buy and equip another site? We need to provide health care for all, regardless of age or income, in a non-profit system. Health care is a service, not an industry. This should be our focus now. Assemblyman Cahill, D-Kingston, Sens. Larkin, R-Cornwall, and Bonacic. R-Mount Hope, and Gov. Spitzer must act immediately to reverse the actions of the Berger Commission and lift the death penalty on one of our much-needed hospitals. They have been derelict in their duty to safeguard the interests of the people. Call or write them now and demand their intervention. ESTHER NASON Kingston Esthernas1@juno.com |
Press giving Kingston Hospital a free pass Dear Editor: As we suffer through our national tragedy in Iraq, it is clear that one of the biggest reasons that we have ended up in this horrible situation is because of our national media. Our journalists failed to ask the serious questions, and took the flawed explanations of our leaders without seriously examining the details of their assumptions and plans. Now, America is left with its worst disaster in history. We are embroiled in a cultural and religious conflict that will haunt us for many years to come. How did we get into this situation? Clearly, a major part of the problem is due to profoundly unwise national leadership, and the poor judgment of the journalists of our broadcast and print media. Here in the Hudson Valley, we have a tragedy unfolding with our own local leadership, and the poor judgment of the editors and reporters who have accepted flawed explanations. Our wonderful way of life, with its peaceful diversity, and coexistence of citizens with various religious and ethical beliefs, is about to be seriously harmed by the decisions of the Board of Trustees and the administration of Kingston Hospital. We have been told that the only way to address the financial problems of our local hospitals is for Kingston Hospital to move away from its secular mission, and corporately give up its right to practice medicine that is free of religious restrictions. Like the situation with our national leaders in Iraq, our local leaders are dead wrong, their reasoning is flawed, and our local press is not asking the serious questions, nor thoroughly examining the details of the assumptions and the plans that are being made. There are millions of dollars that can be saved, and the medical arms race between the Kingston Hospital and Benediction Hospital can be stopped without beginning to dismantle our wonderful way of life. Recently, the administration of the Kingston Hospital admitted that it never really looked at any other solution. It has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to justify a decision that it had made years ago, to remove some legal secular services in order to satisfy the demands of the Catholic Archdiocese of New York. The trustees and administration of Kingston Hospital never sought to develop a wiser plan which would utilize shared services, and still respect the missions of both hospitals. Within the findings and recommendations of the Berger Commission, there are other financial solutions that are possible, but tragically the wiser strategies have not been developed. Without our local journalists and editors examining the assumptions and decisions that the leaders of Kingston Hospital have made, our community is being given an unwise plan. As with the situation in Iraq, the average American has felt somewhat paralyzed during our national tragedy. Here in our part of the Hudson Valley, we are watching the dismantling of our wonderful way of life. What can we do to avoid the pending disaster? Without journalists helping us, we are victims in an unfolding tragedy. SAM MAGARELLI Woodstock smagarelli@hvc.rr.com |
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