Letter To The Editor: Morality: What Is It? Where Is It?

Dear Editor,

We have a community of very God-fearing, religious people. Churches are everywhere. We have more people of the cloth than we have gas stations. We have more people going to church than going to vote. I fear there are more people believing in God than in good. So it seems.

Dear reader, I say all this in order to bring up a subject that is of great concern to all of us — our hospital. The Bible is full of stories of healing the sick as an act of great moral purpose.

Our hospital is sick. It is sick because the “St. Thomas government” has chosen not to fund it to the degree it requires.

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) requirements are 85 percent complete with the remainder requiring about $10 million for new equipment and medical supplies.

Our hospital sees a lot of patients each day, and every year about 100,000 people go through the emergency room. It’s a busy place and expensive to run properly.

The budget debate over different departments’ desires and needs is fine, but cutting money from Parks and Recreation or the Legislature or festivals is a political act.

Cutting needed money from the hospital is an immoral act.

On a Sunday or any other day of church worship, the congregation will hear sermon after sermon on the evils that will keep you from getting into the pearl gates. Ministers can go on for hours with good advice on how we should avoid sin and temptation and on how to act morally toward others. Fire and brimstone will befall those who disobey God’s word. You will not pass through those golden gates if you don’t do the right thing.

Doing the right thing?!

When the government cuts our hospital’s budget, they do the WRONG thing. When the gates to the hospital are closed or almost impossible to pass through, then we all suffer the pangs of demise. This is NOT just a political wrong but a moral wrong. A safely operating and strong hospital is of absolute necessity in the community. Let the other departments cut what needs to be cut, but our hospital is vital and is not to be thought of as just another department.

People of the cloth rise up and bring your congregations to demand that the government do the right thing — that our hospital receive all that it needs. For it not “our hospital” but it is “us” that is the hospital.

The government should do the right thing — the moral thing!

Submitted by:

Bob White, St. Croix

The views and opinions expressed are solely those of the author, and may not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the staff and management of the VI Consortium.