To John Dillon, Chairman, University of Maryland Shore Regional Health:
As you and the UMSRH Board consider the serious action of reducing Chestertown’s hospital to a freestanding emergency department, we ask you to consider some consequences that we have not yet heard discussed which could result from such a decision.
Let us imagine a time when in fact there is only a freestanding emergency department in Chestertown, not a full-service hospital. It is a foggy morning and a school bus is hit by a large truck. Victims are rushed to the Emergency Department which is immediately overwhelmed due to a lack of enough personnel to handle such an influx. Those on site are already engaged in a morning routine of cut fingers, chest pains and high fevers. Administrators are quickly on the phone trying to reach nearby doctors, nurses and other medical workers. The staff in the ED must triage the patients, attending to some immediately while others must wait.
Consider this, too: How much blood would such a stand-alone emergency department stock? Would it have enough on hand for a sudden influx of accident victims? How fast could it get blood from surrounding hospitals?
Multiple-injury accidents happen. Multiple-victim fires happen. According to the National Labor Relations Department 2015 report, fishing is the most dangerous job in America and farming is the eighth most dangerous. Chestertown hospital serves an area high in both those occupations.
When confronted by an unexpected medical crisis in the community, a full service hospital has the staffing and supplies on hand to back up the emergency room. Personnel and supplies can be in the ED in minutes. A stand-alone emergency department does not have that backup, with results that could be disastrous.
Vincent and Susan De Simone
Chestertown
Stephan Sonn says
Excellent!
jenifer e e says
Thank you, Vincent and Susan.
Christine Reeves says
Thanks Vince and Susan for your informative and candid letter. I am a Chestertown resident and must admit that the # one reason I chose this wonderful retirement community was the presence of a full service hospital. I truly believe that to discontinue or reduce services and/or the number of beds would as Vincent and Susan pointed out a disaster.
Carol Schroeder says
Another point that I have not seen elsewhere is the fact that 2016 brings the 70th birthday to the first year of baby boomers (born 1946). Already there are many retirees in Kent County but there will be many more in the years to come, even if no more retirees move to Chestertown. I do not understand how medical services are being cut in other places and perhaps here with this large group going to need more medical care, as all elderly do. This group will also eventually not feel able to drive to Easton. Aging is not an option that can be farmed out to others and neither should medical care.
Janice Dickson says
Having lived in Chestertown since 1971, we decided to remain in place upon my husband’s retirement from Washington College. We liked the town. The hospital’s ER saved my husband’s life when he had a heart attack; although we did have to self-transport to UM hospital in Baltimore for stent placement. As time passed it became clear that Dr. Joseph Aquilla, the first to raise a red flag, was correct in his forward-thinking about the hospital’s future. Unfortunately he was sidelined by vicious attacks, rumors and gossip. Spring forward and see some of those who maligned Dr.Aquilla taking up the cause he first opined. For us, the handwriting was unfortunately on the wall: in the early 2000s after one of us contracted a near-fatal hospital-caused infection, we decided to relocate to a Colorado community that has superb medical care. After more than 30 years, we left friends and the feeling of community and place behind with regrets, but we believe we made a good move, especially as I read articles and letters in THE SPY. Keep up the good fight people of Chestertown, Kent Co. and Queen Anne’s Co. to keep and return to its previous level of service the Kemt & Queen Anne’s Hospital, as it was known before all this chaos.