I am grateful to Dominick Dephillips for speaking candidly about his mental health (“Psych care in short supply: Newport man turned away by DHMC is one example,” Dec. 24).
Thanks to West Central Behavioral Health, they found time to see him and I wish him well.
The root crisis in our inequitable health system is access to health care when we need it. The funding mechanism must change to make this happen. Since we can’t seem to rectify these problems, resources must be available where the need is great. When we hear that hospitals have been overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients, it is not the lack of beds but the lack of clinicians. This appears to be the case in Dartmouth-Hitchcock’s Department of Psychiatry.
D-H took over the psychiatry department from Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine in 2016. It stands to reason that there’s an obligation to adequately staff the department based on need, which is greater now than it has ever been in this inequitable nation.
The pandemic has exacerbated and exposed the inequities of our society in every facet of our lives. All of this stress is compounding challenges to our mental health. Before the pandemic, workers struggled to provide the basic necessities for their families, like keeping their home and paying for food, utilities, school and maybe health insurance while working two or even three underpaid jobs.
D-H is building increased capacity for money-making surgeries while getting federal subsidies during a pandemic. It invested big money in technology that serves a massive billing system. Then it turns people away from the care they desperately need. It appears that D-H’s priorities are in the wrong place.
I am asking D-H, as the largest health system in our area, to be accountable to the patients and to put resources where they are needed the most. It must hire and support the mental health clinicians, who are as overwhelmed as those in emergency rooms across the country.
SHARON RACUSIN
Norwich
I am still fuming as I write this. I just came back from doing errands and swear it was “no mask day” in Claremont.
My first stop was Cumberland Farms on Washington Street. The employees there usually do an excellent job at getting customers to wear masks. But on this visit I encountered three people who did not have them on and the store clerk didn’t say a word to them.
My second stop was Big Lots to make a return. I was going to do some shopping, but saw several people without masks and decided I didn’t need anything that important, so I left.
My third stop was Walmart. This one made my blood boil the most. I saw two different families — women with four children each in tow. There were no masks on any of them. The two older boys (probably 11 or 12) were chasing each other wildly past customers and laughing. Another woman (shopping solo) was sneezing repeatedly. She did not have a mask on. I saw several more people without masks or wearing them improperly, some of them employees. Out of frustration, I cut my shopping trip short. I made sure to tell the employee at the door that I was disappointed. She said she has no control over what customers do.
Recently, I ordered takeout from a local pizzeria. Much to my disappointment, all the employees in the kitchen/food prep area were maskless and talking over the food they were preparing. I am close to 60, have high blood pressure and a cancer history. I lost a relative to COVID-19, so yes, I am angry. I’m at the point where I don’t want to shop at local businesses anymore.
Why did our governor put so many loopholes in the mask mandate? Why bother having one? If the COVID-19 cases keep rising, it only hurts our economy even more. It will take time for the vaccine to be administered (to those who believe in it) and for it to take effect. We still don’t know how long the effect will last.
LAURIE J. WALLACE
Claremont
I read that the government wants to give a stimulus payment of $600 to all Americans, and a single person who makes less than $75,000 and a couple making less than $150,000 are eligible. Those amounts should be lowered. I cannot believe we are that stupid.
The unemployed, people on welfare and others in need should be the only ones receiving these funds. Are we so wealthy that we can give away money to a person making $75,000 a year? And now there’s a call to increase the payment to $2,000. The United States of America is moving at a increased speed toward destruction. We the people need to take back our country.
RAYMOND BELLAVANCE
Lebanon
It has been both interesting and disturbing to observe the widespread venting of hatred against President Donald Trump. The media seem to have a love-hate relationship with him, which is to say they love to hate him. Mediocre actor-comedian Alec Baldwin seems to have a deep vein of hatred for Trump, all the more amazing since he’s lived large off his parodies of Trump on NBC’s Saturday Night Live over the past four years. Of the Baldwin brothers, I respect Stephen, who’s actually doing something noteworthy with his life.
It seems that everybody who’s anybody in Hollywood and the media hates Trump, as well as most of the 81 million-plus who voted for Joe Biden, but now that they won’t have Trump to kick around anymore, where will their hate find an outlet? It’s understood that harboring bitterness will eventually cause it to turn inward, producing psychosomatic and actual sicknesses. I can’t help but wonder how many deaths attributed to COVID-19 (and blamed on Trump) were actually due to Trump Derangement Syndrome, which may have had immunosuppressive effects.
Other “celebrities” with intense hate for Trump and his supporters are CNN’s Don Lemon and Keith Olbermann, not to say the news media in general. The rush to push Trump out of office is unlike anything we’ve ever seen before. The media demonized Trump at every opportunity while falling all over themselves to practically canonize Biden. Antifa and Black Lives Matter supplied violence to destabilize the country, and the coronavirus provided panic that was whipped into hysteria to create a nefarious “trifecta.”
So where will Trump-haters direct their hate now? Probably against the more than 74 million of us who voted for Trump. It’s all right, because most of us have broad shoulders, and those on the left conveniently forget God has reserved vengeance unto himself. And no, I will never repent on my deathbed for voting for moral rectitude and godly values that keep America great — unless they are stomped to death.
WILLIAM A. WITTIK
Hartford
We are thrilled to celebrate the victory of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, but we know there is still much to be done here in New Hampshire.
Republicans don’t just have the governor’s office again, they won majorities on the Executive Council and in the Senate and House. As a result, funding for public education, health care, protecting the environment, equal rights, reproductive freedom and more are all likely to be on the chopping block during this legislative session. Programs many of our Granite State and Upper Valley neighbors need to survive are in danger.
So we urge you to make your first New Year’s resolution right now: Commit to getting involved. Every Claremont resident registered to vote as a Democrat is invited to our virtual caucus on Jan. 7, from 7-8 p.m. (Email Claremont.NH.Democrats@gmail.com for a link to the caucus.) Find out about your town’s Democratic committee at www.nhdp.org. These meetings are vital and they depend on citizen participation. Plan to attend yours. Let’s get to work.
JOHN CLOUTIER, GARY MERCHANT and ANDREW O’HEARNE
Claremont
The writers represent Claremont in the New Hampshire House.
Boy oh boy, is Donald Trump a sore loser. Takes the cake. Is there anyone worse? A Guinness record holder. But he is also playing us for suckers, raising and spending vast mounts of money in his feckless efforts to stay in power. Much of the money is provided by rich contributors — they love his tax and regulation reductions. Other amounts come from his working-class adorers, even as his policies hurt them. And some from the Republican National Committee. And do we suppose that his legion of political appointees, drawing decent salaries and benefits, are actually spending much time on matters for which we are paying them? Of course not. They are working mostly on “keep Trump in power” matters.
What a waste. Imagine that money being spent on child care, or habitations or education.
You can bet, though, that when the Joe Biden administration proposes to spend to improve the lot of our people, Republicans will cry to high heaven that we “can’t afford it,” we “must practice budget discipline.”
C’mon, you reasonable Republicans. You are out there. I see you sometimes, even hear some of you on TV. Dump right now the sore loser and create an adult, responsible party. Our country needs two. We have only one now.
RAYMOND MALLEY
Hanover