My husband needed a room in our new hospital, and there were no rooms available. According to a couple of articles in this newspaper, the hospital spokesman has said they “first ask patients and their families if they want to be transferred to another hospital.”

They did not do this for us. We very clearly stated that we did not want to be transferred. They told us point blank that they were going to have to transfer him. They gave us no options even though they knew we were terribly upset about this.

My husband was sent to Bangor. According to Google maps, it is 78.4 miles away from Augusta; driving time: 1 hour and 18 minutes.

In Bangor, he was unknown. In Bangor, they had no idea about his medical condition and history. As a cancer patient with ongoing issues, this transference was not in my husband’s best interest. In fact, if they had allowed him to stay a few more hours in the Augusta emergency room, which was not crowded that night, he would have been all right to go home.

I cannot understand the reasoning for the decision to put only 192 beds in a hospital that replaced two previous facilities in a region with an aging population.

To say it was a hardship to have to travel more than an hour to get to my husband is an understatement. The statements in the paper that patients are given a choice are not correct.

Carla HeistenChelsea

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