Letter to the Editor

The opinion article on page 5 of The Chronicle on August 20 featured Eileen Appelbaum’s “As maternity wards close, mothers pay the price.” This is literature that imitates our local shuttered 87 year old maternity unit six years ago, preceded by the 2015 closure of our ICU.

Windham Hospital is the only Hartford Healthcare owned hospital to have such cuts and outsourcing of services from Windham to Backus Hospital and now to Manchester Hospital as well.

The proprietary healthcare corporation overrode unmet public health benchmarks, and our over 50% demographic of women and families of color.

Childbirth is a losing money service. How did 428 births from 2010 shrink to less than a hundred and now to zero? Simply put, they endowed neighboring hospitals by giving away our generations of local and full service care.

Bring back the Hill Burton Act and endow Windham Hospital the restoration it was promised but denied. Windham United to Save Our Healthcare is growing and as is our community call for health access and equity given back to Windham.