I love Great Barrington. I love practicing orthopedic medicine here. I love the professional and personal relationships I have developed with so many of you over my 20 years here. I feel it is part of my professional obligation to my patients and the larger community to say this as plainly as I can: If we don’t solve the workforce-housing crisis in South County, your healthcare is in big trouble. I will use my own practice to explain.
My office manager of 13 years commuted 45 minutes from New York state. She could not find local affordable housing locally and moved to Maryland. The lack of workforce housing limits the number of potential candidates, forcing me to stock shelves, clean exam rooms, and enter clerical data rather than see more patients. I even had a temporary medical assistant who drove from North Adams once a week. I have been short-staffed for over a year.
This is unsustainable. I cannot run a high-quality orthopedic practice without proper support staff. I would like to continue practicing for years to come. Without proper staff, I can’t continue—and I won’t—because I can’t serve my patients properly.
Leave me aside—I know I have more years of practice behind me than ahead of me. What about the future? I suspect everyone reading this knows: We don’t have enough physicians or other healthcare professionals in the Berkshires. One reason is that new physicians just out of training can’t afford to live here. If we don’t create more workforce housing, the Berkshires will become a healthcare desert. The ripple effects will be devastating. Young families won’t move here. Older families won’t stay. New businesses won’t open here. Existing businesses will cut back or close.
Why am I writing this? Because I now see that every one of us must become an advocate for workforce housing. Here in Great Barrington and in the Berkshires, we are blessed with many public officials who are such advocates. Gov. Maura Healey and her administration are moving in the right direction. Good. All of us must ask ourselves what we can do. Maybe it is contributing to one or more of our affordable-housing nonprofits. Or participating in your town’s housing committee, planning board, select board, or other vehicle for promoting enlightened housing policies. Even just talking it up with your family and friends. In the end, we must do all we can to ensure that our public officials remain vigilant, that the housing crisis remains top of mind on a daily basis.
Some of the hardest moments in practicing medicine are telling patients what they don’t want to hear. It is, however, my responsibility as a physician to speak out. This includes doing what I can to tell my patients—and my community—that this workforce-housing crisis is a public health threat to us all.
Those of you who know me know I am an optimist by nature. But optimism is an outlook, not an outcome. The outcome will be determined by what each of us does, to preserve our own health and the health of our community.
Editor’s Note: On Wednesday, March 12, at 9:30 a.m., The Berkshire Edge will present a free webinar on “The Housing Crisis in the Berkshires—A panel discussion featuring Mass. Housing Secretary Edward Augustus.” Local housing advocates will join Secretary Augustus on this panel, and local business leaders will be invited to contribute questions and comments regarding the impact of the housing crises on the local economy. Click here to sign up to attend this webinar.
This is the third in a series of Edge business webinars. Many thanks to Berkshire Money Management and Lee Bank for generously sponsoring the series.
