St. Andrews emergency room in Boothbay Harbor has been closed for six months, and its former inpatient wing has been reconstructed for outpatient physical therapy.

In March, the Maine Department of Health and Human Services indicated that it is likely to approve these and other changes in the local healthcare system. Despite all of that, local advocates continue to fight to retain local services and local control over healthcare decisions

Last Thursday, Boothbay Region Health and Wellness Foundation Vice Presidents Jane Good and Margaret Jones Perritt took a ride to Augusta so they could hand deliver the foundation’s comments about the state’s preliminary analysis on Lincoln County Healthcare’s creation in 2007 and its merger of St. Andrews and Miles Memorial hospitals in 2013.

Good and Perritt didn’t just stop in at DHHS, they also provided the foundation’s comments and supporting information to Gov. Paul LePage and Attorney General Janet Mills.

“The foundation feels that the 2007 merger of St. Andrews Hospital and Miles Memorial Hospital to form Lincoln County Healthcare was illegal, as MaineHealth never applied for a Certificate of Need,” Good and Perritt wrote in a press release. “Furthermore, Lincoln County Healthcare and MaineHealth failed to apply for a Certificate of Need when they reorganized in 2013, a move that ultimately resulted in the closure of St. Andrews Hospital.”