Letters to the editor - February 1, 2013

Moving ER is a good idea

The Emergency Department that has existed at the site of the old Winsted Memorial Hospital building is scheduled to move to another location just across the eastern Winsted border in about two years if the plans with which Charlotte Hungerford Hospital’s board of directors have agreed comes to fruition.

What will this mean for the people who live in the greater Winsted area? I have some interest in this as I have been the lead physician and medical director here since this emergency department reopened in 1997.

And in reality, the other parties, including the Winsted trust which owns the present building housing the present emergency department, Charlotte Hungerford Hospital that operates, finances, administers and insures the continued provision of care, and those individuals who have felt the need to comment both positively and negatively about this move are not as close to this as I am. I have been the physician who has seen and treated many of the people who have used this facility. In many ways this has been my practice for 15 years.

And so, what will this move mean to the people of greater Winsted? It will not mean that the emergency department will be much further away because it will only be moving from one side of a small town to the other side of a small town. It will not mean that the care will somehow suffer because a new facility will have state of the art technology and imaging capacity to better be able to make more rapid and exact diagnoses. It will not mean there is any decreasing interest on the part of the provider of the emergency department, Charlotte Hungerford Hospital, as they are purportedly signing up for an extended long-term lease. And the medical care delivery will continue to be something of which all of us, the patients and the providers, can be proud.

Speculation as to the worthiness, the dedication to great medicine or the deep intent to provide honest care for the local population is misdirected and fuels anxiety for some of my patients. This I do not appreciate. And I would not represent their best interests if I let it slide. The patients who will use any new facility should be very excited about the prospect, not forlorn.

No one should believe that this move, five minutes away, will do anything other than allow for the better medicine that I want to practice. 

They are wrong.

Dr. Greg Grinspan

Head physician, Hungerford Emergency Services, Winsted Health Center

Winsted

Residents should oppose ER move

Barkhamsted residents are being asked to subsidize the Borghesi/ Charlotte Hungerford Hospital project so that the  developer can make a profit.

A former Barkhamsted selectman recently wrote that he objected to the tax abatement proposal. He generally supports tax abatements, which are traditionally used to draw businesses to towns.  He objects to this particular abatement because it is at the expense of Barkhamsted’s neighbors in Winsted.  He thinks this is not good for the region and that economic development should be planned with “an eye toward regional stability”.  Many agree with this analysis.

The proposed project is a classic example of bad corporate citizenship and reeks of conflict of interest (the owner of the property for the new development is on the Charlotte Hungerford hospital board).  This is a cynical insider scheme to profit a few at the expense of many.

There is no question that the developer intends to make a profit.  What does this mean?  The rental rates to Charlotte Hungerford, the physicians and other tenants must necessarily be high enough to ensure profit.  This is in contrast to the rates that the Winsted Health Center charges as a nonprofit entity dedicated only to providing health care services to area residents. 

Some on the project say that rents cannot be kept low enough without the tax abatement. So what will happen when the abatement expires?  It is likely that the rental prices will increase. When that happens, Charlotte Hungerford, already financially challenged, will close up shop and this region will lose access to emergency care and other medical services.  All of us will have to rely on getting to Torrington (and eventually, who knows where) for life-saving and other medical services.

This will be yet another loss for Winsted and the surrounding towns.

Please attend the Barkhamsted town meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 6, at 7 p.m. and vote no.

Charlene LaVoie

Winsted

The writer is the community lawyer in Winsted.