I was fortunate to experience Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital when it was at its best. Jim Varnum was at the helm and the “culture of caring” genuinely existed in the actions of the staff rather than as a corporate tagline. Since Mr. Varnum’s departure, the focus on caring both for patients and staff has dropped considerably and is now almost nonexistent.
The culture of the medical center, since his departure, has changed to that of a business model where the delivery of top-rate patient care is secondary to maintaining the budget margin. I realize that some of this is necessary due to the current climate of health care. However, I believe most of the decisions made by top management are made in a vacuum and do not include or represent the opinions of the hard-working staff they most affect. Leadership is lacking at DHMC; they are managers. You manage things, you lead people. There is also no loyalty to the people they manage.
They would do well to remember the old adage: Loyalty down, loyalty up. Now once again due to the unilateral decisions by the “new sheriff,” layoffs are going to occur and affect the people who most need their job as they are living paycheck to paycheck. What happened to having serious town hall meetings and asking the employees for solutions? You’re laying off people, yet spending $15 million on pay raises. If all of the top management personnel took pay cuts, you could save millions. Is that on the table? What executive of a nonprofit needs to make more than $300,000 in the Upper Valley? They aren’t American Express executives and this isn’t New York or Boston.
Sad to say that the spirit and soul of DHMC, and perhaps even its conscience, left the day Mr. Varnum left the building. As they rush ahead to implement their vision, perhaps they need to look behind and see the carnage they’ve left in their wake.
Lynn Purvines Croydon
Giving out Narcan for drug overdoses is somewhat analogous to giving out first-aid kits for gun violence. It is analogous inasmuch as both do not treat the problem but the result of the problem.
Tim BowenLebanon
Transparency is a challenge when one’s opponent tells enormous lies. Donald Trump and his surrogates happily promote rumors that Hillary Clinton has Parkinson’s, epilepsy, a stroke and advanced dementia. (This is the woman who held up under 11 hours of grueling testimony during a highly partisan congressional hearing.)
Having been diagnosed with walking pneumonia, she hesitated to fuel the false narratives already spread. Major newspapers flashed headlines about a lack of transparency and whether Clinton will be found less “trustworthy.” Her opponents are not held to the same standard.
People spreading lies and innuendos are often given a pass. Are such falsehoods so extreme that they need not be challenged? No, they must be challenged lest voters accept them uncritically.
At the same time, Mrs. Clinton has been harshly criticized for speaking a painful truth: a sad number of our citizens hold deplorable attitudes and beliefs about their fellow Americans. Mrs. Clinton said, “You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic — you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.” (She went on to speak of the other half, who are suffering and understandably desperate for change.)
Ta-Nehisi Coates, a noted author, points out that Mrs. Clinton’s statement holds up under fact-checking: “We know, for instance, some nearly 60 percent of Trump’s supporters hold “unfavorable views” of Islam, and 76 percent support a ban on Muslims entering the United States. We know that some 40 percent of Trump’s supporters believe blacks are more violent, more criminal, lazier and ruder than whites. Two-thirds of Trump’s supporters believe the first black president in this country’s history is not an American. These claims are not ancillary to Donald Trump’s candidacy; they are a driving force behind it.” Which is more intolerable — these attitudes, or daring to speak the truth about them?
It is time to call out the truly big lies being told in this campaign season, and put choices of disclosure in perspective.
Diane RootWest Lebanon
We need to fix Act 46, the school consolidation law that is tearing at the local fabric of communities. When elected, I will focus on making the law more flexible to fit with communities’ wants and needs, school choice and local governance of our schools.
I have attended Act 46 hearings of the Windsor Southeast Supervisory Union and see that the state mandate for consolidation into larger districts goes against what I am hearing while I go door to door. Many children attend the same school as their parents and grandparents, and taking away local control in how their school operates goes against the grain of their thinking. People have made life decisions about where to live based on school choice. The schools anchor communities in important ways that extend beyond the classroom.
I don’t believe Act 46 would check costs. The law is written to address shrinking enrollments and control costs, but it does not do this. In fact, the way the law is written, the state would take away small-school grants and penalize schools that do not consolidate based on the approval of the State Board of Education. Act 46, the complicated education reform law, aims to spur consolidations and provide tax relief. But state officials have taken unilateral action without consulting local communities. The law is troublesome and unworkable as defined.
It will be difficult for local districts to hold on to the local school district and school choice as the state pushes for mergers of boards and budgets. Act 46 gives the state considerable control over local schools. But it is the teachers, parents and the community who should have the controlling hand over how their children learn and how they will fund their budgets.
Annmarie ChristensenWeathersfield
The writer is a candidate for the Vermont House in Weathersfield and Cavendish.