While state and federal lawmakers work to restore emergency services following last week’s closure of North Adams Regional Hospital, community members continue to demand a healthcare facility in the region.
More than 100 people met at the American Legion in North Adams Tuesday night to hear updates on the progress of restoring services at the hospital from state lawmakers and healthcare union officials. People also pledged their support to the former 530 employees of North Berkshire Healthcare. Michele Marquis worked as a respiratory therapist there for 36 years.
“We’re used to taking care of people and now we’re being supported and taken care of,” Marquis said. “It’s very humbling and very emotional.”
Deb Leonczyk is the executive director of the Berkshire Community Action Council.
“People have been stopping by our North Adams office and people have been into the Pittsfield office,” Leonczyk said. “They’re scared and they want to know what’s available to them.”
The council offers financial assistance and job training along with other services. Leonczyk says BCAC is also considering utilizing its 27 vans used for transporting disabled people to help non-emergency patients get to Pittsfield for treatment.
“We are hoping to find a way of utilizing some of that unused capacity during the day to help with some of this transportation to and from Berkshire Medical [Center],” said Leonczyk.
Community Health Programs, which has offices in Great Barrington and Pittsfield, sent its 35-foot mobile medical van to the NARH campus Wednesday, with medical and health insurance enrollment specialists on board. On Tuesday, members of the medical staff at NARH donated about $100,000 to Ecu-Health Care, a health care access organization in North Adams. Mike O’Brien is with the SEIU1199 United Healthcare Workers East, which represents roughly 200 former hospital employees. A respiratory therapist for 36 years with NBH, O’Brien says the ongoing work toward setting up a satellite emergency facility run by BMC at NARH is a high point after an up and down week following the announcement on March 25th that the hospital would close three days later. He points out how difficult it is for the people who lost their jobs, some held for decades.
“You’re talking about people that in their 50s now and they have to come up with a resume of what they did prior to 30 years when they first started here?” O’Brien. “It can be mind-blowing. It can be very depressing especially when you start thinking, well you know two weeks ago…”
BMC has hired about 75 former employees of NBH, mostly doctors and doctors’ staff. Other regional healthcare providers say they are admitting new patients and receiving applications from former NBH employees as well. A job fair featuring about 20 healthcare employers was held on the NARH campus Wednesday.
Union officials say they will hold a similar meeting next Tuesday. Mike Fadel is with the Massachusetts Nurses Association, which represents about 100 former employees at the hospital.
“There are some people that said we will never get a piece of it back,” Fadel said at meeting. “Everybody in this room said we are going to get something back! We can do it! There’s hope and if we act we know that we can do it!”
After the meeting, a handful of people stood at the main intersection and entrance to the city of North Adams donning shirts and holdings signs plastered with their message – “Save NARH.” North Adams resident Mike Wilber expressed his anger at the decision by the NBH Board of Trustees to abruptly close the hospital.
“It could mean death to a few people and they killed the city of North Adams,” said Wilber.
