Maintain local control over health care

Charlotte Hungerford Hospital is considering ways to improve access to health services for Winsted residents, including three new locations for the services it now provides at the Winsted Health Center, not necessarily in Winsted. The fourth option is to stay put — a smart but cynical attempt to avoid the community opposition that will result if the emergency facility at the Winsted Health Center is closed.

Charlotte Hungerford should be made aware of the importance of having all services available and proximate to each other at the current Winsted Health Center site, including those it offers.

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When the Winsted Health Center was organized in 1996, Charlotte Hungerford played an important role in the development of services. The federal government decided to open a Veterans Administration primary care clinic at the Winsted Health Center precisely to take advantage of the other services nearby — for example, the blood draw and radiology services provided by Charlotte Hungerford.

In addition, the Veterans Administration was well aware of the reputation of the 100-year-old former hospital site as the “center� for health care in the Winsted service area population of over 30,000 people located in Winsted, to the north, the west and the east, less so to the south.

Likewise, mental health, other outpatient and physician office services were located at the site of the former hospital, a convenience for both patients and their physicians.

In addition, one of the reasons the state court awarded the $1.5 million from the Susan B. Perry Fund and the federal government granted $2 million in housing money to the Winsted Health Center Foundation was because of the proximity of the senior housing to the medical services at the Winsted Health Center.

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Citizens should urge Charlotte Hungerford Hospital to consider the importance of maintaining a “center� in Winsted for all of these valuable services. A choice other than the current location will have these predictable consequences:

• The “center� will diminish, and the area population will be inconvenienced.

• Services that are complementary will be fragmented and patients will have to drive from here to there to receive health care.

• The end of the life-saving LifeStar program.

• A community controversy—of the type associated with the “Burrville General� in the 1980s and the Sok “Vision Plan� in 1996 — will result.

Charlotte Hungerford Hospital should recall the Burrville plan of the 1980s. The idea of “starting over� with new hospital buildings was perhaps an attractive one, but ignored public preference. The 1996 Sok “Vision Plan� to close Winsted Memorial Hospital and open a walk-in clinic “somewhere on Route 44� met with ferocious public opposition (12,000 signatures in 12 days).

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Working with existing buildings can be difficult, but rewarding: People know where to find services, relationships between providers are enhanced and continuity assured. Charlotte Hungerford Hospital’s commitment to excellence is applauded, but excellence is not always — as should be evident — found in discarding the past. Build on it.

This is exactly the reason the Winsted Health Center Foundation was organized — to establish and maintain health-care services at the health center under local control, not somewhere else under the sole control of an out-of-town entity with no other concern than the bottom line. Otherwise, we in Winsted are at the whim of the self-interest of others. This is the reason that local control is of paramount importance.

Charlene LaVoie is the community Lawyer in Winsted. Her office is funded by the Shafeek Nader Trust for the Community Interest.