TEXT: A set of questions from former Williamstown selectman Ken Swiatek about NBHS planned closing
From: Ken Swiatek <folkens.uch@live.com>
Date: March 26, 2014, 6:15:30 AM EDT
Subject: Questions on the North Adams Regonal Hospital ClosingNARH Closing – Answers Needed – Thank You!
Here are some questions and comments I have regarding the North Adams Regional Hospital (NARH) scheduled for March 28, 2014 that was announced on March 25, 2014.
1. Who, if anybody “owns” the hospital?
2. Do members of the NARH Board of Directors receive any form of compensation?
3. How can the Board of Trustees close the hospital without even proposing any succession plan like a 24/7 hour medical emergency stop business? This seems an awful lot like a cut and run decision, even if it was carefully planned for months.
4. Does Berkshire Medical Center have a helicopter landing pad like Southern Vermont Hospital?
5. How soon will the Williamstown, North Adams, Adams ambulance services be getting a medical helicopter? Where will it be housed?
6. Why would any parents from outside the area want to send their children to Williams College or MCLA given that there is no nearby hospital? (Per the Williams Record, Williams sends several students weekly to NARH for alcohol/drug overdoses.)
7. This closing is way, way more devastating than the Sprague Electric closing, in the magnitude of 4-6X worse.
8. I hope this vote of the board of Trustees was not a ploy to play hardball and to bring the nurses union and the nurses into submission for pay and benefit cuts.
9. Please list all the salaries of hospital administrative staff.
10. Is Williamstown Medical Associates in any danger of closing in the next 5 years? If not, what have they been doing right that the hospital cannot do?
11. Is the Southern Vermont (Bennington) Hospital planning on closing soon? If not, what have they been doing correctly?
12. Here is a listing of the NARH Board of Trustees: give ‘em a call!
Julia Bolton, Jane Allen, Ellen Bernstein, Arthur Turton, Chi Cheung, Jonathan Cluett, Stephen Fix, Bruce Grinnell, Richard Jette, Byron Sherman, Martha Storey, Susan Yates, William Frado Jr., Tim Jones.
13. There is also a long list of the Board of Corporators:
http://www.nbhealth.org/NBH/167/Board-of-Corporators.html
14. Would an infusion/transfusion of major new blood on the Board of Directors have helped the hospital to be able to look outside the box? How about some sort of receivership?
15. This may be a wake up call for the Northern Berkshire area, but if it fails, who will be left to flip the light switch?
16. If anyone has answers to ANY of these questions, please send them along. Once we get a few answers, there will be many more Questions.
17. Property values and school enrollment numbers will stat plummeting in 3, 2, 1 ...
18. First they shut down our newspapers, now our hospital, what is next?
19. What will happen to NARH pensions, current and future?
20. See 1-18 above.
Ken Swiatek
Williamstown, MA
Ken SwiatekRadio: 91.1FM Tu 3 - 6 PM www.MCLA.edu/WJJW
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