North Berkshire Health Coalition Sets Rally for Full-Service Hosptial
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NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — A group of concerned residents and former North Adams Regional Hospital employees have formed a coalition and plan to release a report on Wednesday making the case for a full-service hospital.
The North County Cares Coalition will hold a rally at 5 p.m. on Wednesday at City Hall.
"All of us care about health care and are committed to ensuring the availability of all needed services in our community," said James Lipa, a longtime resident of North Adams and founding member of the North County Cares Coalition, in a statement. "The Massachusetts Department of Health and Human Services-commissioned Stroudwater Report has confirmed that the health care needs of Northern Berkshire County residents are the greatest in the commonwealth and has confirmed the need for 18-21 acute inpatient beds to meet the needs of northern Berkshire County residents.
"The report we will present on Wednesday builds on those findings with more current and more accurate data to clearly show that a full service hospital is viable and must be restored if we are to meet the needs of these communities."
North Adams Regional closed in March last year and its parent company declared bankruptcy. The closure cost more than 500 jobs and left North County without a hospital and, for several months, without emergency care.
Since then, Berkshire Medical Center of Pittsfield has purchased the property, established an emergency satellite facility and begin restoring outpatient services. The reopening of inpatient beds, however, is still uncertain.
The report by Stroudwater Associates recommended the opening of a limited number of beds but only if BMC is able to obtain designation as a "critical access hospital," which would mean higher Medicare reimbursements and better chances for sustainability.
The Massachusetts Nurses Association has claimed the hospital had been financially healthy and that it was the excessive debt incurred by Northern Berkshire Healthcare the 1990s and early 2000s that crippled it.
The group that has been meeting weekly on Tuesday nights for nearly a year has consistently advocated for inpatient services and the continued expansion of outpatient care for the region's nearly 37,000 residents. They say the low-income and underserved Northern Berkshire deserves the same level of health care as the wealthier Southern Berkshire region, which has a full-service hospital — Fairview — operated by BMC's parent, Berkshire Health Systems.
The new report, the coalition says, "clearly shows the need for, and sustainability of, a full-service hospital to meet the health needs of this region."
According to Richard Dassatti, a North Adams resident and member of the coalition, "We are calling on all local, state and federal public officials and Berkshire Health Systems to provide our neighborhoods and our community with full inpatient services. The neighborhoods of North Berkshire County require and deserve the same quality and array of services offered by South Berkshire County's Fairview Hospital regardless of any study, federal designation, or whether it is profitable.
"Berkshire Health Systems and our government have the resources necessary to provide the residents of North Berkshire equal access to a full service hospital as the finding of this report verify."
Over the past year, the coalition has received the support of officials in seven communities, including North Adams, Adams, Cheshire and Williamstown.
Tags: NARH, rally, Save NARH,
