To the editor:

I would like to take this time to express my views on the recent past and the future planned expansions of Lawrence Memorial Hospital.

Indeed, LMH is more aesthetic to the eye with its outdoor fountain entrance, improved lobbies, beautiful dining room and glass-enclosed elevators. And, the plans for an expanded emergency room are grossly overdue. I also am sure that future maternity patients will really enjoy the hotel suite atmosphere of their rooms as will other patients enjoy the privacy of their own private rooms.

I don’t begrudge anyone these added needs and “amenities,” but I would like the community to consider who has been left out – “no room in the inn” this Christmas season.

Two years ago, when I was deeply depressed, the LMH ER doctors insisted that I go to a psychiatric unit to get my medications adjusted. There is no such unit at LMH. Bert Nash staff called every psychiatric unit in Kansas City and Topeka, and every bed was full. They eventually found an available bed in Leavenworth.

I know that, in the past, the argument against such a unit at LMH was that it “lost money.” But did you know that the ER loses much more? Yet who among us would argue that we shouldn’t have an expanded up-to-date ER? Not me!

Is this community willing to bear the shame of turning its back on some of its most vulnerable and medically needy citizens? Or, as Jesus might say, “What you do to the least of these you do unto me.”

Bill Simons,

Lawrence