Dear Readers,

It is summertime in Maine. The days are warm, the nights are cool, and once again it seems that nearly half of the folks who live on the East Coast are driving up I-95 and Route 1. Bless 'em all.

Once again our friends from away have found our little corner of God's great geography. So many stopped that if you shopped at Hannaford last weekend you were lucky to find a parking place and a shopping cart. Stuff couldn't have flown off their shelves any faster if they were giving it away.

Sure, Mother Nature put the kibosh on our official Fourth of July fireworks when she dropped three and a half inches of rain on us, but some amateur pyro-technicians helped to fill that void.

Once again, if you dared to drive off the peninsula on Route 27, you ran into a major league traffic jam when you hit Route 1.

That annual traffic jam is one reason lots of us who live in Boothbay, Boothbay Harbor, Southport, Edgecomb and Squirrel Island are concerned about healthcare.

For the last 18 months, since the powers that be at the Maine Health system decided to close our beloved St. Andrews Hospital, and replace it with an urgent care facility, many in our community feel abandoned.

We all knew our little hospital did not do heart transplants and other major procedures like Mass General and the Cleveland Clinic. But all of us felt there was a place we could go if there was a medical problem. It is especially true for the tourists who are hundreds of miles away from their family's regular doctor.

I am not going to go into the details of the community’s fight to keep St. Andrews Hospital open. The suits at Maine Health, the company that controls St. Andrews, gave lots of reasons for their closure decision, but in the end, they said there was not enough business for them to keep it open; it was a money losing proposition.

So they replaced our hospital with an urgent care facility.

During business hours, if you had a minor medical problem, like the time I sliced a sliver off the end of my little finger off while cutting up veggies for dinner, you could go to the clinic and they would patch you up. After business hours, you had to drive to Damariscotta's Miles Memorial Hospital or to Brunswick's Mid Coast Hospital for treatment.

In a major emergency, one where lives were at stake, you called 911 and our great ambulance crews would take you to the emergency department at Miles, Mid Coast or Portland’s Maine Medical Center.

In the latest chapter of the saga, Maine Health asked the state to bless its decision to close St. Andrews, only they called it a merger with Miles.

State health officials blessed the merger, but ordered Maine Health to keep the St. Andrews urgent care clinic open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Now Maine Health is crying poor mouth. They say keeping it open 24/7 will cost too much, and they are appealing the state's decision. They are seeking community support.

I am sure if they don't get their way with state health officials, Maine Health will file suit and spend lots and lots of money on lawyers and lobbyists and other experts. Well you know the rest.

We all know our nation's healthcare system is in trouble. All over the country, healthcare professionals and the public they serve, are wrestling with high costs and inefficient systems.

But maybe, just maybe, Maine Health could just bite the bullet and comply with the state ruling and keep the urgent care center open 24/7 for a while. If there is not enough business, so be it.

But if it turns out they are providing a needed service, maybe Maine Health can find savings in another place to free up money to service our friends, neighbors and friends from away.

This does not seem to be a problem that calls for a rocket scientist. All it takes is a little common sense.

After all, it is not a multi-million dollar problem of epic proportions.