If someone came into our town and bought our water supply system, they would literally own something that was necessary for people to stay alive. Now imagine the owner cutting off our water supply by deciding to reroute it to a different area and spending millions of dollars to do this. Then further imagine the owner informing the people of our town that they can still have water, but they must go to a different area to obtain it. Now most people, especially elderly people, are not going to have big trucks and containers to do this, but the owners offer to provide trucks and what was needed for the transport — but for a hefty price. Basically, people would be left with the following choices: either do what the owner wants, go to another out-of-town water supplier or die without water. This is a far-out scenario that would probably never enter into our wildest dreams, but in my wildest dreams I never imagined that a health care business like Mayo would come into our town, take over our hospital, take away needed health care services and then offer these health care services on costly terms that completely inconvenience many people’s lives and could potentially put lives at risk.

In my wildest dreams, I never imagined this type of tyranny could exist within our health care system. To me, there is something very morally wrong with this. If Mayo wants to take on the responsibility of trying to play God over peoples lives, then they are going to need to take responsibility for the negative impact this will have on literally thousands of people’s lives, and it is very devastating that I have not seen or read anything to indicate that they even care. My opinion of Mayo has drastically changed from what I had once thought of them. They have some of the best heart surgeons in our country, but it is my strong opinion that Mayo is rapidly losing it’s own heart. I hope to live to see the day when the greed pulsating through the veins of Mayo’s “business” catches up to them. But I would rather live to see Mayo get its heart back in the right place, once again, and carry on with the mission of serving others. I am confident the Mayo brothers would be honored to know that their original dream was being kept alive: “The needs of the patient come first.”

Jody Johnson

Albert Lea