Letter to the editor: Most vulnerable Mainers pushed aside
A volunteer vaccinator at MMC reports administering the COVID vaccine to MaineHealth employees while many people in much greater need still have no access.
Share
As a volunteer vaccinator at Maine Medical Center, I believe that MaineHealth CEO Bill Caron should be ashamed of himself for going against state guidelines in his decision to vaccinate young employees who have no face-to-face contact with patients.
At recent clinics I have vaccinated MaineHealth grant writers, research scientists from the Maine Medical Center Research Institute and medical records employees working from home. None of them was over 70 years old. Meanwhile, my wife’s 94-year-old father, living independently, was unvaccinated until very recently. Elderly patients of private-practice physicians remain unvaccinated. Rural Maine remains largely unvaccinated. What’s wrong with this picture?
Vaccine clinic brings hope, relief to elders on Peaks Island
Front-line immunization teams from Northern Light Health and MaineHealth administer shots to 130 senior residents of the community to fend off COVID-19.
Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer
Reta Morrill got a rousing Peaks Island welcome when she stepped out of the cold and into the warmth of the community hall at the Brackett Memorial Church.
Born and raised on Peaks, 89-year-old Morrill was a fixture at the island market for four decades before COVID-19 made it too risky for her to continue working there as a cashier.
On Sunday, Morrill was one of 130 island elders who got their first shot of the Moderna vaccine during a Valentine’s Day clinic organized by islanders and others, most of them volunteers. They included a group of nurses from the mainland who woke early to ride the ferry from Portland and deliver the vaccine as the sun was rising over an icy gray Casco Bay.
Read Article
A Falmouth couple who died this week in a traffic accident on the Maine Turnpike were remembered Wednesday for their kindness, optimism and good work.
Press Herald copy editor Betsy Gattis was employed at the paper for 30 years. She retired in 2018.
Carl D. Walsh/Staff Photographer:
Geoffrey Gattis and his wife, Elizabeth “Betsy” Gattis, both 68, died Tuesday afternoon as they drove home from a visit with their grandson in Massachusetts. Their car was stopped in traffic and rear-ended by a tractor-trailer near the Kittery-York line.
Geoff Gattis retired in 2018 as executive vice president of Bath Savings Institution, where he had worked since 1992.