Support for our local hospital and board

We want to express our support of our local hospital, hospital board members and the county commissioners. They have worked tirelessly looking at various options to improve our hospital and update it to meet the needs of the community. From what we read in the Independent Record and talking to board members, we feel they are on the right track. We feel it is very important to keep local control of the hospital and health care facilities in this community. Giving up control to an outside entity means their main interest is for themselves, not us. And that could leave the future questionable that we might end up with no facility at all and losing our doctors.

We feel we are lucky to have such wonderful doctors who are also very active members in this community. We feel so appreciative of all they have done for our family over five generations, through many health problem and stays in the hospital, and even saving a family member’s life several times. When an emergency arises, with this full care hospital, many lives, from many families, have been saved. And when a loved one is in the hospital, we can go visit them daily without having to travel out-of-town each day, which would often be impossible due to work and/or weather. Traveling out-of-town for any medical procedure or over night hospital stay can be a real hardship for many people – losing time off from work, children missing school, bad weather and roads, money for gas, eating out, maybe even motel costs, and ill-health making it extra difficult to travel. We do not want to lose our full care hospital that might be taken for granted now, because once it is gone, that is it, it is too late.

Our full care hospital and other medical facilities and health care providers in this town hire many people and have a very positive impact on the economy of this county. Losing any part of this will have a downward spiral effect on the whole community. And to give up control of our hospital to an outside facility and/or not having a hospital where we can spend the night for care, would mean losing the Pioneer Home. In the past, some members of the State Legislature tried to get the Pioneer Home moved to Casper. Thanks to the hard work and letter writing by many, we were able to keep this great facility here. We do not want to take the chance of losing it.

We support and appreciate our doctors, the hospital, all the hospital employees, the hospital board and believe that local control is in the best interest of the community for keeping people employed, helping the economy and most of all, full health care for all our citizens 24 hours a day, whether for one hour or one week.

Kay Rush and

Ruth Clare Johnson