![Medical staff votes 25 to 1 to oppose Nuvance plan](https://millertonnews.com/media-library/some-participants-in-the-oct-2-womens-march-in-kent-expressed-concern-about-local-access-to-reproductive-care-if-nuvance-close.jpg?id=48216412&width=980&quality=90)
Some participants in the Oct. 2 Women’s March in Kent expressed concern about local access to reproductive care if Nuvance closes obstetrics at Sharon Hospital.
Photo by Lans Christensen
SHARON — Members of the Sharon Hospital medical community were told on Wednesday morning, Sept. 29, about Nuvance’s plans for the hospital’s future — including the closing of the labor and delivery unit, and reductions in surgical services and critical care. The medical community first heard the plan only hours before the general public.
After Nuvance administrators left the meeting on Wednesday morning, held on Zoom, the medical staff voted 25 to 1 to oppose the plan.
The doctors can’t control what Nuvance will do, according to Dr. Michael Parker, an independent doctor specializing in internal and pulmonary medicine.
“I feel it’s really important for people to get another view of how this all happened and for the community to know that their physicians don’t agree with the process.”
Parker, who has had a practice in Sharon for 33 years, was part of the medical staff Zoom meeting on Sept. 29. He said that the doctors who voted to oppose the Nuvance plan included many longtime local physicians as well as newer doctors who are part of the Nuvance medical practice.
The vote was taken by secret ballot, Parker said, so that all the doctors could “vote their conscience.”
Parker said that he can’t speak for all the doctors but he was personally disturbed by the lack of community and physician involvement in the decision. Most of the doctors, he said, were not told of the plan until the day the announcement was made.
The presentation by Nuvance to the public can be seen online at www.nuvancehealth.org/locations/sharon-hospital/sharon-hospital-transfor....
Financials versus medical care
The administrators largely presented the financial concerns of the not-for-profit medical group, which includes several hospitals in western Connecticut and Dutchess County, N.Y.
However, there was no mention of the other hospitals in the new strategic plan put forth on Sept. 29, which was entirely focused on Sharon Hospital. Sharon is a 78-bed acute care hospital.
Parker conceded that this is a very difficult time in health care from a financial point of view. But he challenged Nuvance’s assertions that by closing obstetrics and other key departments they will help the hospital to stabilize and grow.
Included in the Nuvance proposal is a reduction in surgical services and critical care.
The new plan was devised without input from the community at large or the medical community, Parker said. The hospital does get input from a community board, and from the Foundation for Community Health in Sharon.
It was the Foundation that had requested that an independent consultant look at Sharon Hospital, Parker said.
Stroudwater Associates was hired — and supported Nuvance’s plan to cut back services.
No community input
Parker said he feels Stroudwater’s conversations with doctors (based on his own interview) were brief and insufficient.
Those interviews, he said, “should not be construed as part of the planning. We, the doctors, were not involved.”
After hearing rumors of impending cuts, a small group of doctors formed the Physican Leadership Council and asked to meet with Nuvance President and CEO John Murphy in mid June.
Murphy agreed to the meeting and gave them a preview of what Nuvance had in mind, and invited the physicians to try and come up with a better plan.
Before sharing any information with the physicians, Murphy pledged them to secrecy.
“We were asked not to share the information with anybody, including our colleagues,” Parker said. “Which effectively hamstrung us and prevented us from brainstorming any solutions.”
The physicians asked for full financial information on the hospital at that time, but their request was denied.
Parker believes that there might have been a different outcome if the medical staff had been given all the facts right away.
“I believe that if the process was open and fluid, the conclusions might be different about how to save our community hospital.”
The Physican Leadership Council was later given a PowerPoint presentation by the Stroudwater group summarizing their findings.
The end of obstetrics
Parker criticized several specific elements of the Nuvance proposal, including the proposed shuttering of obstetrics. It makes no sense, he said, that Nuvance said in their announcement that they plan to close obstetrics but expand women’s services.
While closing labor and delivery, will save costs, it will also reduce several sources of revenue, Parker believes, such as elective gynecologic surgery and C-sections and imaging.
Even worse, it will eliminate the ob-gyn doctors who, he said, “provide primary care for many of the women in this region. So, you’re cutting women’s services at the same time you say that you’re going to grow them.”
Primary care, Parker said, is the key to the future of the hospital. Without primary care physicians to see patients here, he said, there are no referrals to medical specialists at Sharon Hospital, from surgeons to radiologists.
Need for more primary care docs
There is a critical shortage of primary care physicians in the region now, Parker said — and most of the doctors who do have practices here are approaching (or have already reached) their mid 60s and are beginning to think about retirement.
Nuvance’s efforts to grow primary care and ob-gyn care, Parker said, have been insufficient.
“They’ve shown that they can neither recruit nor retain doctors successfully.”
Nuvance can not proceed with many of its plans until it gets approval from the state.
Parker said he has been in contact with state Rep. Maria Horn (D-64).
“My hope would be that we can put the brakes on this, collect ourselves and see if we can save this hospital without curtailing essential services.”
The Lakeville Journal requested interviews with representatives from the Foundation for Community Health in Sharon and from the Sharon Hospital community board. Those requests had not been responded to by press time.
We hope to interview doctors in the obstetrics and gynecology community for upcoming issues.
Maxon Mills in Wassaic hosted a majority of the events of the local Upstate Art Weekend events in the community.
WASSAIC — Art enthusiasts from all over the country flocked to the Catskill Mountains and Hudson Valley to participate in Upstate Art Weekend, which ran from July 18 to July 21.
The event, which “celebrates the cultural vibrancy of Upstate New York”, included 145 different locations where visitors could enjoy and interact with art.
On Saturday, July 20, The Wassaic Project hosted numerous community events. Will Hutnick, the director of artistic programming, said “We’ve been a part of it since the beginning, this is the fifth year of UPAW.”
Most of the action was based at Maxon Mills, the seven-floor grain mill located in the heart of Wassaic. On exhibit was work from 30 artists, 18 of whom were past residents of The Wassaic Project. “Artists can come and do a residency here, meaning they live and work with one another for a couple months at a time,” Hutnick stated.
The first floor held work by Petra Szilagyi, who uses dirt and linseed oil to construct images of paranormal concepts, most of which include bats. They reflected that a recent trip to a fifth sense competition in Vietnam was the influence behind the exhibit.
Across the floor was Tiffany Smith’s interactive installation which incorporated plants and wicker chairs, all of which were objects associated with her Carribean upbringing. “The room being filled with plants is symbolic of hurricane prep which often included bringing the plants from outside into the house,” Smith said.
As visitors made their way up the narrow wooden stairs, music could be heard from behind the walls. The echoing music was Daniel Shieh’s installation, entitled Mother’s Anthem, which played a recording of the American Anthem in 30 languages. The languages ranged from Spanish and Italian to Navajo and Bengali.
Each floor was filled with artwork of all mediums, including painting, fibers, collage and photography. Rachel Bussières, who switched her concentration after watching the 2017 solar eclipse, uses varying light sources to produce lumen prints. During the wildfires, she recounted that she “made a new exposure each day to capture the changing air quality”.
Luciana Abait also incorporates the natural world into her pieces, instead using maps. An environmental activist originally from Argentina, Abait’s work highlights “environmental fragility, specifically the impacts it has on immigrants.” Her installation that is currently on display at Maxon Mills, takes the form of a mountain range built solely from maps of the US and Argentina.
Throughout the day, visitors could “Arm Wrestle 4 A Popsicle”. Winners had the choice of 3 playfully flavored trout-inspired popsicles - Nightcrawler, Power Bait, and Salmon Roe. Artist Katie Peck, who spent the day in costume as a rainbow trout, encouraged guests to step up and try their hand at an arm wrestle.
Shibori Indigo dyeing, group meditation, and dance workshops were open for community members of all ages as well.
While the daytime activities fostered appreciation of fixed art, a dance party until midnight at The Lantern Inn offered guests a space for performative art.
When describing the environment of The Wassaic Project, Smith emphasized, “It’s all community, it’s all love.”
A serene scene during the Garden Tour in Amenia.
AMENIA — The much-anticipated annual Amenia Garden Tour drew a steady stream of visitors to admire five local gardens on Saturday, July 13, each one demonstrative of what a green thumb can do. An added advantage was the sense of community as neighbors and friends met along the way.
Each garden selected for the tour presented a different garden vibe. Phantom’s Rock, the garden of Wendy Goidel, offered a rocky terrain and a deep rock pool offering peaceful seclusion and anytime swims. Goidel graciously welcomed visitors and answered questions about the breathtaking setting.
Amenia Finance Director Charlie Miller welcomed visitors to his Bog Hollow Road garden in Wassaic, a manicured expansive yard with well-placed garden beds framing a far-reaching view. He said he plans carefully each winter for the next spring’s improvement.
The organic, environmentally responsible Maitri Farm was next, a lesson in coordinating agriculture with natural balance. The farm stand and a walk among the greenhouses brought visitors together.
Near the center of Amenia was the garden of Polly Pitts-Garvin, offering a chance to visit a robust vegetable garden with raised beds to be envious of and a remarkable absence of any insects or usual vegetable garden problems.
At Chez Cheese, the vast garden acreage surrounding the 1850s historic home of Joan Feeney and Bruce Phillips in Millerton, visitors could begin at refreshment stations where walking tour maps of the 15-acre property were available. There were streams and ponds with docks, and a dozen bridges arranged around the landscape. In the 19th-century, the property had been the home of the Wilson Cheese Factory, inspiring the name of the estate.
The Amenia Garden Tour was supported this year by Paley’s Garden Center in Sharon.
Gary Dodson working a tricky pool on the Schoharie Creek, hoping to lure something other than a rock bass from the depths.
PRATTSVILLE, N.Y. — The Schoharie Creek, a fabled Catskill trout stream, has suffered mightily in recent decades.
Between pressure from human development around the busy and popular Hunter Mountain ski area, serious flooding, and the fact that the stream’s east-west configuration means it gets the maximum amount of sunlight, the cool water required for trout habitat is simply not as available as in the old days.
This is not a new phenomenon. It does seem to be getting worse, though.
Gary Dodson and I convened where the creek makes its final run into the Schoharie reservoir, part of the New York City water supply system, on a semi-broiling Thursday afternoon, July 11.
The goal was simple. Catch smallmouth bass, which abound in the lower section of the river.
This was hot stuff — as in an 80-degree water temperature.
The air temperature was actually slightly less at 77.
After negotiating the intensely slippery rocks, festooned with treacherous algae, the first major pool presented several difficulties, with a back eddy competing with a main flow and several large trees draped about the whole thing.
I hit on the simplest strategy, which was to flip a weighted attractor fly called a Tequilley into the start of the eddy so it would proceed slowly but steadily into the maelstrom, sinking all the while.
This worked. A proper adult smallmouth, with bronze coloring and vertical stripes, took the thing.
The point-and-shoot camera finally died, however, and I was not going to try to fumble my phone out for a nice but routine fish photo.
Why not?
Because I guarantee the fish would have made a sudden, last-moment bolt for freedom, causing me to drop the device into the drink.
Gary moved downstream while I continued trying to annoy the residents of the pool, succeeding a couple of times with different colored Wooly Buggers.
Then we all got bored and I moved off, where Gary was catching rock bass and cussing them out for not being something else. I have to admit, they are not the most compelling critters. Something about the red eyes.
This latest trip was dominated by extremely tedious and distasteful Harry Homeowner activities, but on both Wednesday and
Thursday mornings I prowled Woodland Valley Creek. By “morning” I mean “dawn,” because that was when the water temps were down to a barely acceptable 64.
I made the acquaintance of several stocked browns and of a handful of their wild cousins. The wild fish are smaller and nimbler.
The successful ploy was an Adams wet fly, size 16, drifted behind something big, like a Parachute Adams or Stimulator.