Congratulations to everyone in Chestertown/Kent County for successfully waging the campaign to defer, for one year, any changes in the services and capacity of University of Maryland Medical Center at Chestertown. The question now becomes how to make best use of this hiatus.
Next up are “listening sessions” which are promised to be opportunities for citizens to register their concerns and suggestions with hospital officials. In the long run, we doubt these will result in any significant progress in resolving the underlying conflicts because, it appears that they are only one-way listening sessions — better than nothing, but not likely to result in mutually compatible solutions.
Instead, we believe that our best course of action is to move to a different conflict resolution model. Perhaps we are naïve but why not try a mediated settlement approach? This would involve convening the key stakeholders (hospital executives and staff, physicians, town officials, patient advocates, and major employers) in a carefully structured process. Direct, face-to-face, good faith negotiations facilitated by expert mediators will allow the parties, working on equal footing, to discover common interests and arrive at solutions which are fair, feasible, and realistic. This would move us beyond newspaper broadsides and harsh public rhetoric, defuse emotional position taking, and optimize the prospect of finding common-sense solutions.
This approach also would move decision-making from Annapolis or Washington to Chestertown and Kent County, where experience, knowledge (and most likely wisdom) reside. Already a number of thoughtful solutions have been advanced by people here, including your own editorial of March 22 and the comments it prompted. A mediated negotiations process would create opportunities for give-and-take and potentially lead to an exchange of creative solutions which, while not perfect, would honor the art of the possible and the value of genuine locally based collaboration. After all, what do we have to lose?
Jonathan Chace and Vic Pfeiffer
Chestertown
Penni Walker Doyle, CMUS Executive Director says
Mediation would certainly move the process along allowing those key stakeholders and representatives time and space to, as you put it so well, “discover common interests and arrive at solutions which are fair, feasible, and realistic.” Community Mediation Upper Shore, as you know, Jonathan, is a free mediation service funded by the State Judiciary, our Commissioners, United Ways, and community members to assist in helping the community and its members find solutions to our own conflicts. Our mediators, while volunteers, are well trained community members. In addition, to maintain neutrality, CMUS can pull from an experienced mediator base beyond Kent and Queen Anne’s counties. Please give us a call to discuss how CMUS could help facilitate such a collaboration. 410-810-9188
Stephan Sonn says
Forgot this. There are those who would say that this is property rights vs human rights. There are profound implications here.
Wayne D. Benjamin, M.D. says
From my perspective, I whole heartedly agree with everything you say from your reasoning to the possible final advantages. What do we have to lose? With the most recent wording coming out of Annapolis, I still cannot see where we have really gotten any long term solutions. Unless there is some kind of consensus to return services to this hospital, the simple solution of keeping beds open is a dead end street. Unless we can return meaningful services here and get a sympathetic ear at UMMS we have not accomplished anything! I would applaud a “mediated settlement” or the very least the attempt.
Wayne D. Benjamin, M.D.