Hometown Health worthy of funding

In July 2021, Ellis Medicine closed its dental practice leaving 10,000 patients without care.
Hometown Health Centers, already providing dental, primary, and behavioral health services to 20,000 people without regard to their ability to pay, immediately brought these patients into its practice.
Hometown’s existing dental office became stretched beyond its space and staffing resources. Yet Hometown felt an ethical and moral obligation to do what it has done for fifty years. Serve this extraordinary community.
To ensure continuity, Hometown is now leasing the dental space at Ellis to serve their former patients. This temporarily solved space needs as plans for a new dental facility were developed.
Hometown purchased the blighted Rite Aid building on State Street and will transform it into a state-of-the-art dental practice. It allows Hometown to consolidate both practices and improve dental care options, including oral surgery.
In addition to purchasing the building, there is still $4.3 million of needed renovations.
Hometown received some grant money; it wasn’t enough to meet purchase and renovation expenses.
The center applied for support through the American Rescue Plan Act distributed by the city of Schenectady, which was given $53 million by the federal government.
Disappointingly, Hometown, a bedrock of the community for a half century, will receive no money to help meet the community’s oral care needs.
Hopefully, the mayor and the City Council will find other opportunities to support Hometown and the many vulnerable people it serves.
Joe Gambino
Schenectady
The writer is the CEO at Hometown Health Centers.

Fear merger impact on women’s health

I write regarding John Figliozzi’s August 21 column (“Would consolidating Ellis with St. Peter’s be good for our health?”). The many and varied advantages of this potential consolidation are well noted and make good business sense. But it also removes any choice from the community when it comes to women’s healthcare.
St. Clare’s Hospital served Schenectady admirably for decades before we lost it. But during that time, women had options at Ellis and Bellevue Maternity for services that St. Clare’s would not, as a Catholic institution, provide them.
With St. Peter’s as the surviving entity of the proposed merger, that would no longer be the case.
And I need not remind you of the subject failure of the Catholic Church to care for the many faithful St. Clare’s employees who lost their pension benefits after that hospital was forced to close.
That alone is enough to make me quite wary of any merger involving the Church of Rome.
Phil Arony
Charlton

Castelli will stand up for our principles

I had the privilege of seeing Matt Castelli speak at the Inman Center on Aug. 11. He spoke eloquently about the need to put country before party.
The Founding Fathers warned us against the dangers of faction.
Castelli is running as a Democrat. One of the audience members asked him why he had chosen to run under a major party line. This choice could seem incongruous with his “Country Over Party” slogan.
He responded, sensibly, that the Democratic Party is the only one of our two major parties which remains faithful to the founding principles of our great country. I agree.
The contrast between Mr. Castelli and his Republican opponent, Rep. Elise Stefanik, could not be greater. He has my vote.
Richard Lyford
Amsterdam

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