Editorial: Placid emergency room closure points to bigger problem

Wilmington Superintendent Roy Holzer is a former volunteer EMT, so we take seriously his concerns about the pending closure of the Adirondack Health's emergency room in Lake Placid. Holzer said the closure will add minutes and miles to emergency transport, which of course matters when dealing with instances such as stroke, where time is of the essence. But Holzer also noted the extra time and distance weigh on volunteers as well, whose hours and schedules are already stretched thin. To this we would add that the extra mileage is also more consequential in winter, when one mile can seem like 10. In an open letter of explanation, Adirondack Health outlined several reasons for closure, some better than others. The hospital blamed inflation, a convenient but hollow scapegoat, considering that it began limiting its hours of operation long before any hint of inflation on the horizon. But the other reasons are more sound, and will sound familiar to most any Adirondacker: Too many expenses, not enough users and a shortage of staff. They sound familiar because they could apply just as easily to a restaurant, a school or a souvenir shop as a medical emergency room. And that brings us to the heart of the matter: By design, the state, in the form of the Adirondack Park, limits population density, it limits growth and it limits wealth. We grouse about this, but most of us understand the end goal, even if we don't always agree with it. The Adirondack mountains are a rare, important and fragile ecosystem that we have collectively decided is worth an extra degree of protection from mankind and its money making machine. That's fair enough. What's not fair is that Adirondackers, whose economic potential has been artificially restricted by the state, must pay extra in the way of taxes and receive less in the way of services for the privilege. That's the opposite of the way things should work. In a progressive society, those who can afford the least are not asked to sacrifice the most. Yet here we are — losing our emergency room, losing schools, losing churches, losing employees, losing business, losing places to live, losing places to care for our kids. Albany should understand that there are two sides to this great experiment that is the Adirondack Park. We do relatively well on the conservation side, and for this we are proud and happy. But the human side of the equation is in trouble. That may suit some — those who would rope off the wilderness from all human trespass — just fine. But we do not believe this is in anyone's best interest. Human connection, not human avoidance, is essential to our natural world, and if that doesn't happen the whole experiment fails. We would challenge Albany to reshuffle the deck. To figure out how essential services such as medical care, fire halls, water and sewer plants, highways, police and communications can be funded without financially crushing the scant 130,000 people scattered over 6 million acres; to reconfigure school funding formulas in the Adirondacks so that communities are not punished for the declining populations that the forest protections have necessarily precipitated; and to understand that inequitable taxation is producing undesirable outcomes, such as forcing people to excessively log their woodlands or seek financial relief by turning their long term housing into short-term rentals. A hospital shouldn't be put in the awkward position of having to spring it on the community that their emergency room is about to close, causing hard feelings among people who otherwise are on the same side. But without change, these crises in services, housing, the workforce and family stability will be the future. We have just spent 50 good years taking the ethic created in 1885 to the next level. It is now time to do the same for those who have lived with this ethic in the marvelous spot we all call the Adirondacks.

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Editorial: Placid emergency room closure points to bigger problem

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