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The news late last month that labor and delivery services at Sharon Hospital will be maintained for a period of five years was welcomed by our community. Connecticut Attorney General Willam Tong said it well: “Miles and minutes matter when it comes to labor and delivery, and I am pleased that Northwell has committed to preserving affordable, lifesaving care—especially maternity care—for Western Connecticut. This is a strong, enforceable agreement for healthcare access in Connecticut.”
Nuvance Health announced this spring that it planned to combine with Northwell Health, the largest health provider in New York State. The resulting 28-hospital system would span the New York and Connecticut border. Northwell itself employs 85,000 people, making it the largest private employer in New York state.
The reprieve was the latest chapter in the battle to keep labor and delivery services at Sharon Hospital, a struggle that has been waged by the grassroots organization Save Sharon Hospital and others, including our political leaders, for years. This year in February the state of Connecticut denied the hospital’s request to close the services, citing a long list of “Findings of Fact” that the hospital questioned. The hospital petitioned the state to reconsider, but the state denied that appeal.
At the time of the announcement of the new combination with Northwell, Sharon Hospital CEO Christine McCulloch said that Northwell has agreed to invest in all of the Nuvance hospitals. So it’s not a complete surprise that labor and delivery services at Sharon Hospital have been spared the chopping block — at least for now.
Save Sharon Hospital described the development as a great first step.
Our hospital had its humble beginnings in 1909 in a house rented by Dr. Jerome Chaffee. Less than a decade later a new building opened with 16 beds and three nurses. Over the years, the hospital underwent more expansion. In a 1969 Lakeville Journal article commemorating Sharon Hospital’s 60th anniversary, its history was described as “written by thousands of dedicated people who founded it, planned its development, staffed its facilities, financed expansion programs and, in many cases, became thankful patients.”
Ownership changes first started to occur in 2002 when a for-profit named Essent Healthcare of Tennessee bought the nonprofit, which triggered protests. More than a decade later Essent merged with another Tennessee-based group, RegionalCare Hospital Partners. Some five years after that, in 2016, Health Quest, formed by a merger of three hospitals in New York, took control of the hospital and it once again became a nonprofit. Soon thereafter, in 2019, Health Quest merged with Western CT Health Network, with hospitals in Connecticut, to become Nuvance Health.
This whirlwind of merger and acquisition and flip flop from nonprofit to for-profit and back to nonprofit brings us to our current state of affairs. Confidence in the future prospects for our beloved rural hospital should be bolstered by both Sharon Hospital’s ranking and by Northwell’s long list of top honors as a healthcare provider, and by the reputation of its CEO Michael Dowling as a healthcare leader. Last week, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) gave Sharon Hospital a five-star rating for the fifth consecutive year.
As SSH said, this is a great first step, and welcome news.
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Telecom Reg’s Best Kept On the Books
When Connecticut land-use commissions update their regulations, it seems like a no-brainer to jettison old telecommunications regulations adopted decades ago during a short-lived period when municipalities had authority to regulate second generation (2G) transmissions prior to the Connecticut Siting Council (CSC) being ordered by a state court in 2000 to regulate all cell tower infrastructure as “functionally equivalent” services.
It is far better to update those regs instead, especially for macro-towers given new technologies like small cells. Even though only ‘advisory’ to the CSC, the preferences of towns by law must be taken into consideration in CSC decision making. Detailed telecom regs – not just a general wish list -- are evidence that a town has put considerable thought into where they prefer such infrastructure be sited without prohibiting service that many – though not all – citizens want and that first responders rely on for public safety.
Such regs come in handy when egregious tower sites are proposed in sensitive areas, typically on private land. The regs are a town’s first line of defense, especially when cross referenced to plans of conservation and development, P&Z regulations, and wetlands setbacks. They identify how/where the town plans to intersect with the CSC process. They are also a roadmap for service providers regarding preferred sites and sometimes less neighborhood contention. In fact, to have no telecom regs can weaken a town’s rights to protect environmental, scenic, and historic assets, and serve up whole neighborhoods to unnecessary overlapping coverage and corporate overreach. Such regs are unique to every town and should not follow anyone else’s boiler plate, especially industry’s.
Connecticut is the only state that has a centralized siting entity for cell towers. The good news is that applicants must prove need for new tower sites in an evidentiary proceeding and any decisions have the weight of the state behind them. The bad news is that the CSC used to be far less industry-friendly and rote in their reviews, which now resemble a check list. There is an operative assumption at CSC that if an applicant wants a tower, they must need it, otherwise why spend significant money to run the approval gauntlet? This reflects a subtle shift over the years at CSC from sincere willingness to protect the environment toward minimal tweaking of bad applications with minor changes. The bottom line is that towns really cannot rely on the CSC to do all the work for them.
What CSC issues telecom providers is a “certificate of environmental compatibility” after an evidentiary proceeding (not unlike a court case) with intervenors, parties, expert witnesses, and the service provider’s technical pro’s sworn in and subject to cross examination. Service providers get to do the same with any opposition from intervenor/party participants – like towns and citizens -- and their experts. It’s an impressive process whose ultimate goal is the fine balancing between allowing adequate/reliable public services and protecting state ecology with minimal damage to scenic, historic, and recreational values. They unfortunately often fall short of their mandate – like approving cell towers with diesel generators over town aquifers -- evidenced by CSC only rejecting about five cell towers in the past 15-20 years.
The CSC was founded in 1972 and clarified its mission in the 1980’s to prevent the state from being carved up willy-nilly by gas pipelines, high tension corridors, and broadcast towers. With the sudden proliferation of cell towers beginning in late 1990’s, it became the most sued agency in Connecticut by both an arrogant upstart industry if applications were denied and by towns/citizens when bad sites were forced on them. CSC gradually formed a defensive posture that drives their decisions toward industry with deeper pockets and attorneys on retainer.
For citizens, nothing can wreck one’s day like the CSC. It behooves towns to protect what little toolkit they have, and understand the legal parameters of the CSC’s playing field. The CSC is not a “normal” government agency where municipal/citizen redress is based on logic and local support. Their process is largely immune to everything but specific kinds of evidence – like town regs with setbacks/fall zones, radio frequency transmission signal strengths, sensitive areas identified, and detailed wildlife inventory, among others.
There is a current cell tower fight involving two intervening towns -- Washington and Warren; both with good cell tower regs – over a tower site within 1200’ of a Montessori School, near Steep Rock’s nature preserves with comprehensive geology/wildlife databases that include endangered, threatened and special concern flora and fauna, on established federal/state migratory bird flyways, within throwing distance to a historic site capable of being listed on the Underground Railroad, and with an access road on a blind curve entering a state highway that will permanently damage wetlands, vernal pools, and core forests. There are well credentialed environmental experts, including Dr. Michael Klemens, former chair of Salisbury’s P&Z, as well as the former director of migratory bird management at the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and an RF engineer testifying to alternative approaches, plus three attorneys representing intervenors. It is the most professional challenge I have seen at CSC since Falls Village successfully mounted one that protected Robbins Swamps several years ago.
The hearing is ongoing, with uncertain results. To see what it takes today to stop an inappropriate tower siting, see Docket #543 under “Pending Matters” at https://portal.ct.gov/csc before removing local cell tower regs – the lowest hanging fruit that any town can possess in case it’s needed.
B, Blake Levitt is the Communications Director at The Berkshire-Litchfield Environmental Council. She writes about how technology affects biology.