There are some things that you have to be grateful for in Great Barrington.
At the top of many lists is little Fairview Hospital. It really is an extraordinary gift that the town has given itself. Anything that can be done to help the hospital is really important. Big city hospitals are now places you really don’t want to end up. This is especially true since COVID is doing what I always knew it would do — refusing to go away and replicating itself in new and more contagious forms.
At one point quite a while ago, we were in New York and I was under the weather. I called my doctor and he suggested I get to the mammoth NYU emergency room. “Nothing doing,” I said to myself and got in the car and drove to Great Barrington. I figure that the two-and-a-half hours it took to drive to Fairview might have been two-and-a-half hours or more spent waiting in a New York hospital emergency room. At the Fairview ER, I have always found that everyone is treated kindly and efficiently. It’s really amazing how proficient the Fairview ER docs and nurses are.
However, there are a few problems that need to be looked at and those issues have nothing to do with the folks who work at Fairview. Fairview is owned by the Berkshire Health Systems, and as BHS’ satellite, Fairview is more disadvantaged than the bigger hospital in Pittsfield. One such unfortunate difference is Fairview’s lack of an MRI machine that can check out your various parts and innards. If you come to a hospital with a complaint pain, an MRI seems to me to be an essential way of checking you out. With an MRI, the likelihood of quickly diagnosing a really serious problem like cancer is better. The fact that Fairview doesn’t have this equipment is crippling our hospital. I know for a fact that the staff is upset about this shortcoming. I’m sure there was a time when not all doctors had stethoscopes. Now they do. We should have an MRI machine.
It clearly can’t be a matter of money. Our community would certainly rise to the occasion were the hospital to raise funds for this crucial piece of equipment. What worries me is why this is not built into the Fairview budget. I certainly hope it isn’t because the powers that be at Berkshire Health Systems believe that’s the way to get more patients up to Pittsfield. It’s not a competition.
I remember one time I was at Fairview and was told that I needed a more sophisticated medical checkup. Since I know many docs in Albany where I work at WAMC, I suggested that I be brought to Albany while Fairview protocol called for me to be brought by ambulance to Pittsfield. I insisted on Albany and that’s where I went. That isn’t to suggest that Albany is better than Pittsfield, but I do think that in many ways it is. Someone told me that an ambulance to Albany would have been a great deal more expensive, but it turned out not to be the case.
In any case, there are some things needed at Fairview in order to qualify as a top-quality facility and you had better believe that one of them is an MRI. If you don’t believe that, try talking to a staff member. Assure them that it’s all confidential and you’ll get an earful. So, if you have a moment, it might make sense to give the folks at BHS a call and suggest they listen to those who rate small hospitals, and always seem to mention Fairview, and let them know it’s time to get an MRI machine for our little hospital.
