Union meet to address community

LYNN – Meetings surrounding changes at North Shore Medical Center Union Hospital by Partners HealthCare have focused largely on Ward 1 but on Tuesday the public at large is invited to vent.”This is for the broader community,” said Nicole Heffernan, a spokesman for North Shore Medical Center.The meeting, which will be held at North Shore Community College in the gym at 7 p.m., is to give the medical center and Partners officials a chance to further explain plans to send surgical beds to Salem Hospital and psychiatric beds to Union Hospital.The plan has been met with heavy criticism from Ward 1 residents and city officials alike. Mayor Judith Flanagan Kennedy said she plans to attend the meeting but doesn’t think she will hear anything new.”I think we will hear more venting and frustration but I don’t think we’ll hear about any changes,” she said. “I think it will be more concerns from the greater public that will mirror the concerns of Ward 1.”City Council President Timothy Phelan has formed a Union Hospital Oversight Committee comprised of himself, Ward 1 Councilor Wayne Lozzi, Ward 2 Councilor William Trahant, city Health Director Mary Ann O’Connor, Superintendent of Schools Catherine Latham, Lynn Area Chamber of Commerce member Taso Nikolakopoulos, Winn and John Hackett, owners of Little Theatre Kindergarten, Police Chief Kevin Coppinger, Pharmacy Tech Specialist at North Shore Medical Center Jeanne McAuley, North Shore Medical nurse Joy McNaughton, Ward 1 resident Mike Toomey and city attorney James Lamana.Phelan said he hopes forming the committee will open a dialogue with hospital officials. The idea is that the committee would participate in the formal decision making process as the planned changes move forward, he said.Lozzi said he has not heard whether the medical officials have agreed to sit down with the new committee but he does plan to attend Tuesday’s meeting. He called the changes at Union Hospital the biggest issue currently facing the city.”It’s a loss of core medical services and a top-notch surgical center,” he said.Heffernan said key elements to the plan include consolidating NSMC’s hospital based medical and surgical services to one location, Salem Hospital, “and expanding and improving that facility to serve the needs of a broader community.”Local activist Katerina Panagiotakis Koudanis said the broader community is not defined as Lynn. It also includes surrounding communities such as Swampscott, Nahant, Lynnfield and Saugus to name a few, that also use Union Hospital, she said.Koudanis has launched a Facebook page and an online petition that thus far 191 residents have signed, in protest of the changes. There is also a petition in Kennedy’s office that over 200 residents have signed “in opposition of Partners/North Shore Medical Center’s Proposed Changes to Union Hospital on Lynnfield Street.”Partners said it also plans to expand primary, specialty, urgent care and behavioral health services at North Shore Physicians Group offices in Lynn, Salem and Peabody in collaboration with the Lynn Community Health Center and North Shore Community Health Center, and will maintain emergency services at both Salem and Union.”This has nothing to do with what they’re proposing, it has to do with loss of core medical services,” Lozzi said.He said he hopes that residents will come and voice their opinions and that those opinions will be a factor as Partners goes to the state Department of Public Health for approval of its plan.”I feel they need to hear from the community,” he said. “They have a lot of good points.”