Over the last 10 days, medical emergencies from Southport have made what are probably life-saving stops at St. Andrews Hospital's emergency room – we know this because friends in a small town talk. Luckily, we will never have to know for sure for these few neighbors if our critical access hospital's location saved their lives, but many (if not most) of us believe it did, and has saved many in the past. 

As the statements about distances between hospitals rears its head again, it seemed appropriate to ask: “Just how important is the mileage between Miles and St. Andrews, anyway?” For Critical Access designation (requiring both the 24/7 ER and swing beds) St. Andrews' status is grandfathered. Years ago it was determined that we were rural enough to be designated a CAH because of our location. If we ever lose that designation, it will be lost forever, we are told. Critical Access is also a designation for reimbursement but that part of the story needs attention in its own space.

Another way of looking at the distance between our two hospitals – a second opinion, shall we say? – puts trust in Rand McNally. Since Lincoln County Health has taken issue with the 30-mile distance mentioned in the Save St. Andrews Task Force iVantage Report, it's time to put the mileage argument in its proper place. Since the reason we are even asking the question has to do with closing St. Andrews Hospital and replacing it with emergency attention by our beefed up ambulance service, the location of the ambulance service is also of interest. With calculations made using the starting point as the Boothbay Town Offices, 1011 Wiscasset Road – the ambulance service is housed next door – here are two worst case scenarios:

First, I f you make a call from Newagen (60 Newagen Colony Road, Southport, ME), the ambulance will travel 7.5 miles to pick you up and then 23.5 miles to get you to Miles Hospital in Damariscotta. That's 31 miles. But the more telling number from “Rand” is the time allotted for travel (from the ambulance offices to Newagen, 27 minutes plus; from Newagen to Miles a whopping 59 minutes and 40 seconds) adding up to almost an hour and a half before a patient will be seen in an emergency room. And that doesn't allow for loading.

Second, if you make a call from Ocean Point, the ambulance will travel 3.7 miles to pick you up and 19.6 miles to deliver you to Miles, for a total of 23.3 miles and a trip time of 49 minutes plus.

You can do your own calculations with the St. Andrews Hospital address, trip times and miles are significantly lower, of course. The quality of the roads will not change (we will still be rural) so having to travel fewer emergencymiles on those rural roads sounds like a logical goal. We've been told our ambulance service does a lot of transfers. Traveling as a “transfer” is not the same as traveling as an “emergency” and time becomes less of an issue for the patient. Although the distances from Boothbay Harbor, Boothbay and Trevett to Miles are less than from the remote corners of our peninsula, the emergency time math always favors a stop at St. Andrews. The roads have not changed since St. Andrews was qualified as a Critical Access Hospital. It's not just the miles – it's the time – and maybe a life or two.

See more like this on the Save St. Andrews webpage: http://www.boothbayregister.com/business/save-st-andrews-hospital/9053/