KINGFIELD – The Kingfield select board met on Monday evening at 6 p.m. Franklin Community Health Network President Barbara Sergio spoke to the board about FCHN’s intent to turn into a critical access facility. This will allow for a higher reimbursement of services by Medicare/Medicaid. This shift will involve lowering the limit on inpatient beds to 25. They are currently licensed for 65 beds, which refers to long-term patients.
“For the last 10 years we haven’t had over an average of 25 inpatients on 99.9% of the time,” Sergio said, meaning that this change won’t affect the care the hospital is able to offer.
Sergio has been going around to town select boards in the area to reassure the public that no major changes will occur. Sergio was clear that there will be no cuts in services and no layoffs. “We just don’t want our communities to be afraid they’re losing any care at their local hospital,” she said.
Julia Bouwsma, Library Director for Webster Library, and Patty Veayo approached the board as library representatives to continue discussion on the permanent story walk. This issue had been tabled by the board in July until someone from the library could speak about it in a meeting. In the past, the library has put up temporary signs, displaying pages of children’s books for kids to read as they walk. These signs have been in a few locations previously.
Bouwsma explained the permanent story walk, which would involve resilient signs made of metal and wood that would allow for the stories to be switched out. Bouwsma and Veayo suggested a new story for each season.
Veayo reported that they have been able to mow around these new signs easily, addressing concerns from a previous meeting. She offered to add reflectors to the signs to make them more visible, per Chairperson Wade Browne’s concern about ATV accidents. Ultimately, the board agreed to let Webster Library put up these permanent signs by the river.
The library is planning to install the story walk this fall with the book Wild Child by Lynn Plourde. This story was sponsored by the Maine Mountain Children’s House in Kingfield. Additional donation funds from MMCH were used to purchase the materials along with donations made to the library in honor of Neal McCurdy.
