The Boothbay Board of Selectmen believes St. Andrews Hospital is closing and they're worried about what that would mean for the region.

There has been no indication from the hospital's management at Lincoln County Healthcare that the hospital will be closed. Representatives have repeatedly denied rumors of the closing. Lincoln County Healthcare will be making an announcement about the future of the hospital on Thursday, Aug. 2.

At their July 23 meeting, the selectmen discussed what the impact on the town would be if the hospital were to close.

“Basically, from what I hear, Lincoln County Healthcare is thumbing their nose at us and it's ridiculous,” Board Chairman Chuck Cunningham said.

“When you get to the Aug. 2 meeting, will it already be decided...will it be a moot point?” Selectmen Steve Ham asked.

Selectmen Steve Lewis said if the hospital is closed the economic impact to the region will be monumental.

“The jobs at the hospital help create business for other local businesses,” Lewis said. “People base part of their decision to move here on the fact that there is a hospital on this peninsula; taking away the hospital will influence where they go. Closing St. Andrews is not in the best interest of our citizens and makes people think again about coming here.”

Town Manager Jim Chaousis agreed. “The hit on the region's identity will be irreparable.”

Lewis, also an EMT with the Boothbay Region Ambulance Service, said the service would be significantly affected.

Ambulance service Director Robbie Ham said at the meeting Lincoln County Healthcare has met with him several times. The impact on the service's budget has not been reviewed by the ambulance board and Ham was not comfortable discussing numbers.

Ham said in a telephone interview July 25 that he believes is very likely that the emergency room at St. Andrews will be closing. For the ambulance service this would be no different than the hospital closing because ambulances are not allowed to bring patients to a facility without an emergency room.

“You might only need three stitches, but if I pick you up in the ambulance, I can't take you to a facility without an emergency room,” Ham said.

If the emergency room closed, the impact on the ambulance service would be dramatic, Ham told the selectmen. Ham estimates that the ambulance service would have to make up a $150,000 shortfall in revenue.

Without St. Andrews, ambulances will be taking patients to Miles Memorial Hospital in Damariscotta and Mid Cost Hospital in Brunswick. “It's going to take a lot longer to get to Miles from Ocean Point or Southport than it would to St. Andrews,” Cunningham said. “Will we also lose visitors.”

Ham said a typical turnaround time is 20 minutes for the majority of calls – without St. Andrews responders are looking at a turnaround time of an hour to an hour and 35 minutes and up to two hours if they have to drive through Wiscasset to Mid Coast Hospital in Brunswick.

Ham and the selectmen questioned the impact to patients of the longer ambulance rides, and wondered whether the dock and helicopter pad at the hospital would be maintained if the hospital closed. The emergency helicopter service is called in three or four times per year, Ham said. Island residents with minor injuries are brought to the hospital dock “a couple of times a year.”

Ham is very concerned about the 20-plus serious injuries they respond to each year. “They will be the most difficult for us – during a half hour or 45 minute ride.”

“The thing that is the most disheartening to me, the worst thing about this whole thing, is how secretive LCH has been about it,” Selectman Dale Harmon said. “To back-door this community is just not the way to do things.”

The same night, at the Boothbay Harbor Board of Selectmen's meeting, Boothbay Harbor resident Helen Farnham told that board that for the hospital, based on what she's seen at the Boothbay Selectmen's meetings, “right now, it doesn’t look good.”

She said that an enormous amount of money and land had been donated to the hospital. “I had a quadruple-heart bypass, and if it hadn’t been for the group over there, I would be gone,” she said. Farnham said that the hospital is one of the region’s greatest assets, and “now we’re losing everything, and pretty soon it’ll be like a Band-Aid station.”

Chairman Bill Hamblen thanked Farnham for her comments.