Margie Elsberg’s recent report from Save the Hospital offers wonderful, unexpected good news about a new plan to save our local hospital. Like hospitals in rural areas nationwide, UM Shore Medical Center at Chestertown has struggled to provide the wide ranging medical services our community needs as costs skyrocket. Now, instead of justifying closing our hospital or severely limiting the services it offers, this plan re-envisions it, proposing a new model for rural health care.
The Walsh Center Report analyzes the hospital’s problems in detail, based on the demographics of the Upper Shore. Many challenges facing our schools, businesses and the hospital result from the fact that Kent is the smallest of Maryland’s counties. In addition, the populations of Kent County and northern Queen Anne’s skew older and poorer. If the hospital and other vital community resources continue to shrink, people will move away, exacerbating these problems.
However, the proposal for a Maryland Rural Hospital redefines the growing number of older people in our community as an asset rather than a liability. If we are, as the demographics suggest, the oldest of Maryland’s counties, why not have a medical center which recognizes that and actively seeks to provide appropriate services to that population?
The report proposes specialties including behavioral health, pulmonology, nephrology, neurology, orthopedics, and palliative care – medical care that many of us, of any age, need. In addition it recommends other services: social work, transportation, and care coordination as well as active lifestyle and wellness programs like massage therapy, skin care, acupuncture, nutrition.
For the past few years, people in Kent and Northern Queen Anne’s Counties have had to travel to Easton, Annapolis, Christiana or Baltimore for health care. If fully implemented, this proposal should offer our community many medical services closer to home. Those services as well as a good wellness program should continue to make Chestertown a desirable place to retire and attract younger people to Chestertown too.
We all owe a debt of gratitude to Save the Hospital and to our representatives in Annapolis who have worked hard to keep our hospital functioning. We should also thank state health care officials who were willing to rethink what health care in a rural area could be.
There is still a lot of work ahead to bring this new vision for the hospital to fruition. However, the community has every reason for optimism and an incentive to keep things moving forward now that the people who oversee health care in Maryland are working with us.
Linda Cades
[email protected]
Muriel Cole says
Thank you, Linda, for this timely and thoughtful letter. Older adults here ARE an asset, and we all need to strongly support this plan.
Carol Casey says
Absolutely agree. This is an exciting plan. Thanks for the continued coverage.
Paula Reeder says
From Linda’s pen to God’s – and , hopefully, UM Shore Medical’s – ears! It’s about time that the ENTIRE Kent county medical community acknowledges and affirmatively works to address to the health care needs of area residents by cooperatively establishing and maintaining broad-based, affordable access to quality medical care for Kent County residents – inluding the wealthy, the poor, adults and children, seniors and the disabled, men and women, alike. Both the Hospittal and local physicians should be held acountable for providing non-discriminitory, affordable, locally based, quality health care services to all area residents on an as needed basis.
Camille J. Olinick says
Thank you Linda for the wonderful letter. It is so important to “save the Hospital” to help our older population and to serve the college community , as well as, the citizens of Chestertown and nearby communities.
Carla Massoni says
What’s next? How do we help make this a reality?
This is a great opportunity to model a new concept in health care.
Give me an assignment!!! Margie, what’s next?
Robbi Behr says
This is all great news, and kudos to the Save the Hospital folks for continuing to advocate for all of us! As these changes are put in place (or even before), we should also as a community be pushing for ways in which we can support from within – training and certifications in all of those specialties to help fill out the need on the health services side of things while providing careers for our working age population who want to stay here but feel they have limited options. It would be great if KC could think forward and have a holistic approach to this wonderful return of much needed services.