I am very much saddened and a bit upset concerning the closing of Inland Hospital (previously known as Waterville Osteopathic Hospital).

I honed my management skills as a clinical laboratory scientist, taking the position of director of the clinical laboratory there in the early 1990s. I met some of the most professional, dedicated, intelligent, hard-working employees there — secretaries, physicians, housekeepers, RNs, maintenance, pharmacists, etc. Some are still my friends to this day. The whole hospital was filled with people who cared about their jobs but especially cared about patients.

In 2014, after finding out that I was not the retirement type, I returned to work at Inland in the clinical laboratory in a per diem position. The place had drastically changed but the people had not. They still really cared about their work and patients. Now, both employees and patients are left trying to figure out what to do after they have lost their place of work and their health care providers.

Who is managing Northern Light? Please consider what has been done to this hospital and the local community. One of the principal values of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, is “the needs of the patients come first.” Why can’t Northern Light think the same way?

Marilyn Kenyon
Albion