My husband and I left Mayo Clinic Health System in early 2014 for our primary health care. At that time, I had a sense things were different, and I didn’t like what I felt. We are now patients at a smaller nearby, non-Mayo clinic. According to Rochester Mayo leaders, these smaller entities will be unable to recruit doctors and nurses to staff their clinics/hospitals; they surely won’t be able to make any money, and therefore, certainly there will be a healthcare crisis. I think Mayo’s devious response is wrong. Give our hospital back to Albert Lea, and you will see rural health care at its best. In the forefront, will be protecting and providing care for the sick and the elderly and bringing back the great care of the ICU and its staff. We want our babies born in Freeborn County. The Albert Lea Baby Place will provide excellent care for both mom and baby. Our past four-year experience with rural health care has been very positive. Our providers are all professional, we feel protected and cared for, and communications and access to appointments has been excellent.

Mayo Clinic, you are a world renowned not-for-profit organization — keep up your great work where you did it best. However, this is not by destroying the middle class and rural health care. We are rural America; many are country, not city — many hard-working citizens who pay their taxes and many folks who plant and harvest so everyone might eat. Why is $585 million of our tax money going to you, Rochester Medical Center, DMC? Why is our area paying 20 to 50 percent higher health insurance premiums than other Minnesota regions? In return, you are arrogantly stripping away our rural health care services and dismantling our hospitals, clinics and nursing homes. Our fight and mission will continue — “We need our full-service, acute-care hospital in Albert Lea, Minnesota.”

Karen Miller

Freeborn