I’m writing to share my personal experience as a health care worker, and having contracted COVID-19 myself. I’m a respiratory therapist at a major hospital in Maine. My main role is to provide oxygen therapy, medications and life support to critically ill patients. As such, I’ve seen firsthand the devastating effects of this virus. Our […]

Approximately one in 10 seniors age 60 and older has experienced some form of elder abuse, but the prevalence among seniors with Alzheimer’s and other dementia-related illnesses is as high as 50 percent, according to the U.S. Senate Committee on Aging. The Alzheimer’s Foundation of America applauds Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, for authoring a new […]

Do you really believe we Mainers are “pulling together” against COVID? On Tuesday, my partner, a nurse, walked into Waldo’s, a popular general store in Falmouth, to buy a breakfast sandwich. She was followed by a crew of four men, none of whom was wearing a mask. As they moved around the store and the […]

As a teacher, I can think of no better “teaching moment” for what it means to be an educator than the year that has been 2020. To wish for this year to be over is, therefore, to forget what being a teacher is all about. A recently deceased and former Portland superintendent bore truth to […]

The issue of Trump administration crimes is complicated. Some suggest the Biden administration should fully investigate illegalities and prosecute those responsible. After all, U.S. law applies to all, including the president. Historian Heather Cox Richardson suggests that if Richard Nixon had been prosecuted for Watergate, that might have forestalled Iran-Contra and George W. Bush’s invading […]

I have a problem with Jim Fossel’s column of Dec. 20. I understand that opinion writers get a lot of leeway, as they should. But they should not be allowed to present as fact something that’s just not true. In Sunday’s column, he closes by calling for “both” parties to end efforts to drive down […]

In the Dec. 22 Press Herald, a letter writer (John Kirby) laments Sen. Susan Collins approving each of President Trump’s judicial nominees for the federal court last week, adding that Sen. Angus King opposed most of them. The writer concludes his letter asking if Sen. Collins ever listened to her constituents. Perhaps the writer wasn’t […]

I fully concur with letter writer Dr. Thomas McInerney’s plea for universal health care (“Disjointed health care system makes virus’ toll worse,” Dec. 18). But why should pleading be necessary? Isn’t it self-evident that a wealthy country should have a health care system guaranteeing a high level of care to all? Other advanced countries do. […]