The Stevenson house, built in 1875, is the setting for the Hospital Aid’s Silver Tea to be held on Wednesday, Dec. 4, from 2-5 p.m. in Belfast.

The annual Silver Tea, sponsored by the Waldo County General Hospital Aid, will be held on Wednesday, Dec. 4, from 2-5 p.m. at the home of Tom and Alicia Stevenson, 58 Church Street, Belfast. The public is invited to attend and enjoy the sandwiches and desserts served by Aid members. Drinks will include punch, coffee and tea served from silver services.

This year’s setting is a three-story house built in 1875 for George Pote, a Civil War veteran, who manufactured men’s vests. The house has Italianate influences with a capped decorative portico and bay windows.

The dining room is among the many rooms that will be open to tour at the Silver Tea.

The current owners have lived at the house for the past four years and have carefully restored certain rooms and modernized others. Rooms on two floors will be open to tour with twin parlors, a dining room, sunroom, kitchen, master bedroom and guest room on the first floor. A large map of Belfast from 1855 hangs in the front parlor. The front stairway has the original bannister, dentate-type wall molding and leads to the four bedrooms on the second floor.

There is no admission charge to attend the tea, but a silver bowl will be located near the entrance for donations. All funds realized from the tea will benefit the hospital.

The winning tickets for the Aid’s holiday raffle “Bon Appetit” will be drawn at the tea. There are six prizes this year, each a $50 gift card to a local restaurant. Tickets are on sale at $1 each or 6 for $5 at the hospital gift shop.

For more information, call 930-6739. The snow date for the tea is Thursday, Dec. 5, at the same time.

Let’s Go! Waldo 5-2-1-0 held a recognition dinner recently to “celebrate the accomplishments and contributions to the community” of 48 childcare, school, afterschool and healthcare sites in Waldo County. Of those sites, 31 were designated as sites of distinction and 17 were honored for being well on their way to becoming sites of distinction.

The ultimate goal of the program is to reduce obesity among young people by advocating for children to eat 5 fruits and vegetables a day, limiting recreational screen time to 2 hours a day, providing for 1 hour or more of physical activity per day and cutting out all sugary drinks.

In the healthcare field, those receiving awards were Drs. Ben Mailloux, Matt Molison and Steven Wilson, the Donald S. Walker Health Center in Liberty, the Searsport Health Center and the Lincolnville Regional Health Center.

In addition to the awards to sites, Barbara Crowley, RN, a Waldo County General Hospital employee who oversees Let’s Go! Waldo 5-2-1-0, awarded four special awards to those who have gone over and above with the program in each of the four categories. Among the special award winners was Chris Walker, NP, of the Donald Walker Health Center in Liberty.

Alicia and Tom Stevenson opened their home for this year’s Silver Tea.

The annual Silver Tea, sponsored by the Waldo County General Hospital Aid, was held Dec. 4 at the home of Tom and Alicia Stevenson, 58 Church Street, Belfast. The public enjoyed touring the magnificent home, along with the sandwiches, desserts, punch, coffee and tea served by Aid members from silver services.

Tea and coffee were served in the beautiful dining room.

The setting was a three-story house built in 1875 for George Pote, a Civil War veteran, who manufactured men’s vests. The house has Italianate influences with a capped decorative portico and bay windows.

The fireplaces in the house were all decorated tastefully.

The current owners have lived at the house for the past four years and have carefully restored certain rooms and modernized others. Open to be toured were twin parlors, a dining room, sunroom, kitchen, master bedroom and guest room on the first floor. A large map of Belfast from 1855 hangs in the front parlor. The front stairway has the original bannister, dentate-type wall molding and leads to the four bedrooms on the second floor.

Larry Quinn enjoys punch served by Aid member Jean Russell.

A silver bowl located near the entrance for donations contained $2,163 and the raffle of gift cards to local restaurants netted nearly $1,700. All funds realized from the tea will benefit the hospital.

Tim Woitowitz gets a cup of tea from Aid member Marie Underwood.

Winners of the Aid’s holiday raffle “Bon Appetit” were Leslie Lavender, Lucy Ledien, Ed Lord, Norma Sweigert, Geary Tibbetts and Judy Warren.

Kristen Leavitt and Joe Dorval enjoy their celebration meal before taking their newborn son, Nathan, home.

Lobster Ravioli. Baked sole stuffed with crabmeat and scallop stuffing. Tender sautéed sirloin beef tips in a bourbon infused sauce. Fresh mozzarella & tomato salad with olive oil & fresh basil.

Tiramisu.

Doesn’t really sound like offerings you’d find at your local hospital, does it?
But those items and more are on the celebration dinner menu for new parents of babies born at Waldo County General Hospital. And they aren’t served on a plastic tray. Before the new parents take the newest member of their family home, they are invited to sit down to a gourmet meal at a table with a tablecloth and flowers in the center in the Women & Infants Health Care Unit.

Many of the new parents, especially those with children at home, realize this may be the last fancy meal they are able to have with each other for a while.

With two boys at home, 8 years old and 22 months, Kristen Leavitt knows there aren’t going to be a lot of quiet, sit down together meals after she and Joe Dorval take newborn Nathan home to Stockton Springs.

That knowledge seems to make Joe and Kristen enjoy their meal even more.

And if tiramisu isn’t your cup of tea, the chocolate indulgence cake and New York style cheesecake with fresh seasonal berries look delicious, too.

Some 150 members of the Hospital’s Community Advisory Council attended the annual meeting in November.

Steven Michaud, president of the Maine Hospital Association (MHA), told members of Waldo County General Hospital’s Community Advisory Council, that over the 26 years he has been with the MHA in different capacities, about one-third of the state’s 39 hospitals face operating losses each year. It’s not the same hospitals every year but still it has averaged out to 12 or 13 who finish the year in the red.

This year, that figure climbed to 24 hospitals and the operating losses were much higher.

But one hospital he has not seen on the “red-ink” list is Waldo County General Hospital. “Your hospital is something special within the State and within the healthcare system,” he said, adding that Mark Biscone, Executive Director of the Hospital, and his administrative team are one of the reasons for the Hospital’s success.

Steven Michaud, President of the Maine Hospital Association, spoke at the Community Advisory Council annual meeting.

“The Hospital has had a positive bottom line (including non-operating income) for the last 35 years,” added Lee Woodward, President of the Hospital Board of Directors.

That may be much harder to continue, according to Michaud. He said Maine hospitals are facing “a plethora of changes and a rapidly deteriorating environment.” These include a poor rural economy in the state, an aging population (the oldest in the country), and state and federal budgets that are in bad shape.

Currently, 64 percent of the patients at Waldo County General Hospital are on Medicare or Medicaid and the state and federal governments keep cutting the reimbursements for services provided for those patients.

But the biggest problem, according to Michaud, is the decline in patient volume over the last couple of years. He cited the economy and affordability as reasons for the downturn in volume.

He said hospitals “need to live in a new reality,” including working to keep people healthy and doing better at working with those patients with chronic diseases. According to Michaud, the top 5 percent of hospital users in Maine’s Medicaid program cost an average of almost $70,000 per year while the average cost for the lowest 80 percent is $937 per year.

“We need to concentrate our efforts on the top 5 percent,” he said. “We need to manage their care, make sure they are taking their medications and keep them out of the hospital as much as possible.”

And if hospitals do that, there needs to be changes in the payment system with a reward for hospitals that keep patients out of the hospitals and in their homes; otherwise, the hospital volume will drop and they will be punished for “doing the right thing,” he said.

To deal with the issues he listed, along with the uncertainty of Obamamcarethe uncertainty of Obamacare, Michaud said hospitals need to protect what they have and reform “like crazy,” do better with less, and create value in a transparent world. But, he added, government needs to stop cutting the hospitals reimbursements while they are changing. Biscone added that Maine hospitals will lose $80 million per year for 10 years to pay for the subsidies promised by Obamacare.

Michaud said the trade-off was supposed to be that the bad debts and charitable care performed by hospitals would lessen as more people got covered by insurance. “The cuts are for sure and the offset is less sure,” he said.

Rev. James Barclay, left, was honored for his years of service as the Hospital’s Chaplain by Mark Biscone, Executive Director of the Hospital.

In other action at the annual Community Advisory Council meeting:
• two new board members, Syrena Gatewood and J.B. Turner, were elected;
• members heard from Woodward that one of the biggest challenges the Hospital has faced is the implementation of electronic medical records, which will happen during the upcoming year. He said he feels confident that the Hospital has the right team in place to make that happen right the first time; and
• celebrated the attendance of 150 people at the meeting, which Michaud said is an unusually high number based on his attendance at other Community Advisory Council meetings around the state.

Members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars picked up the candy collected at Ames and CASS in a Humvee and took it to Bangor International Airport.

The generosity of RSU 20 school children is likely making the holidays sweeter for a number of active duty military personnel. The students collected more than a quarter ton of candy to be forwarded to the troops.

Students from Ames Elementary in Searsmont, Captain Albert Stevens School (CASS) in Belfast, Drinkwater School in Northport, East Belfast, and Searsport Elementary School participated in the 2013 Halloween Candy Challenge.

The candy collected at Ames (208 pounds) and CASS (137 pounds) were picked up by members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars in a Humvee and were delivered to the Troop Greeters at Bangor International Airport. They, in a joint effort with the airport, University of Maine staff and numerous volunteers, put the candy in care packages they were sending to deployed troops overseas.

Students in the afterschool program at Searsport Elementary School oversaw the candy collection and used it as a math project.

The remaining candy (220 pounds) was mailed by Waldo County General Hospital to Operation Gratitude in California, who annually sends 100,000 care packages to troops overseas.

The classes, who collected the most candy at each school, earned an extra recess.

The Searsport Elementary School afterschool program oversaw the project, using it as a math lesson.

Linda Hartkopf, the School Health Coordinator employed by Waldo County General Hospital, was the leader behind the project.

Let’s Go! Waldo 5-2-1-0 held a recognition dinner recently to “celebrate the accomplishments and contributions to the community” of 48 childcare, school, afterschool and healthcare sites in Waldo County. Of those sites, 31 were designed as sites of distinction and 17 were honored for being well on their way to becoming sites of distinction.

The ultimate goal of the program is to reduce obesity among young people through advocating for children to eat 5 fruits and vegetables a day, limiting recreational screen time to 2 hours a day, providing for 1 hour or more of physical activity per day and cutting out all sugary drinks.

To address the policies, practices, and environments that influence healthy lifestyle behaviors, the program uses these 10 strategies:

1. Provide healthy choices for snacks and celebrations; limit unhealthy choices.
2. Provide water and low-fat milk; limit or eliminate sugary beverages.
3. Provide non-food rewards.
4. Provide opportunities for children to get physical activity every day.
5. Limit recreational screen time.
6. Participate in local, state, and national initiatives that promote healthy eating and active living.
7. Engage community partners to help support and promote healthy eating and active living at your site.
8. Partner with and educate families in adopting and maintaining a lifestyle that supports healthy eating and active living.
9. Implement a staff wellness program that includes healthy eating and active living.
10. Collaborate with Food and Nutrition Programs to offer healthy food and beverage options.

Dr. Tory Rogers listens to a student from the Searsport afterschool program talk about their cooking club.

Dr. Tory Rogers, who is the director of the Let’s Go program, said after coming up with the program eight years ago, it is now in all 16 counties and there are 1,000 sites across the state, all with the same consistent 5-2-1-0 message.

Dr. Rogers asked the audience for some examples of initiatives they have taken to help advance the goals of the program. Among those listed were:

• Creating a food cupboard and farmers’ market at Mt. View.
• Growing food and sending home recipes for using that food.
• Lending out snowshoes and ice skates for families to use.
• Installing handicap-accessible gardens.
• Holding a cooking club after school.
• Helping to prepare healthy snacks and taking them around to the classrooms.
• Putting out a sugar bottle display to show how much sugar is in different sodas and juices.
• Changing from serving young people Kool-aid and fruit juices to water with citrus.
• Hearing a kindergarten say, “The apples are really shiny and red today.”
• Taking a high school student to the grocery store and having him use the money from his first paycheck to purchase a pomegranate, and saying, “I’m going to divide this and every time I finish an assignment, I will eat a section.”

“This is little stuff but that is what it takes,” said Dr. Rogers. “We got in the mess over four or five decades and it takes time, but tastes are changing.” She said she was in Damariscotta recently and the children were taking kale chips for lunch and in a visit to a school garden, a young student brought her a bouquet of Swiss Chard, gave it to her and said with pride, “We grew this.”

She said, “The kids are doing this and pulling the adults along.”

Winners in the healthcare were, from left, Dr. Ben Mailloux; Dr. Steven Wilson; Regina Degraff, who accepted on behalf of the Walker Health Center in Liberty, the Lincolnville Regional Health Center and the Searsport Health Center; and Roberta Goff, FNP, who accepted for Dr. Matt Molison. Also in the photo are Dr. Tory Rogers and Barbara Crowley, RN.

In addition to the awards to sites, Barbara Crowley, RN, a Waldo County General Hospital employee who oversees the Let’s Go! Waldo 5-2-1-0 awarded four special awards to those who have gone over and above with the program in each of the four categories. The award winners were:

• Monica Wing, program director at the Belfast Area Children’s Center, for childcare;
• Ruth Southworth, program director for the RSU 20 afterschool program, for afterschool;
• Glen Widmer, principal of the Walker and Troy elementary schools in RSU 3, for schools; and
• Chris Walker, NP, of the Donald Walker Health Center in Liberty, for healthcare.

Ruth Southworth, the program director for RSU 20’s afterschool programs, accepts a special award for her “passion, creativity, community involvement and much, much more…”

Another special award went to Rusty Emmerton, who has been a volunteer in the afterschool program in Searsport for nine years. He is known for his “I can” attitude and his advice to students: “You can do anything you want to but only if you set your mind to it.”

Receiving childcare awards were Grammie’s Child Care in Belfast; First Steps in Belfast; Cindy’s Daycare in Liberty; Waldo Community Action Partners in Belfast and Northport Head Start; Starrett’s Children’s Center in Belfast; Belfast Area Children’s Center in Waldo and Ames Pre-K Boardreach Family and Community Services in Searsmont.

Named as sites of distinction in the afterschool category were the 21^st Century afterschool programs in Morrill and Searsmont, Swanville, Searsport Elementary and Middle School; and Frankfort.

Winners in the school class were Monroe Elementary, Troy Central School, Mt. View High School in Thorndike, Ames Elementary in Searsmont, Captain Albert Stevens School in Belfast; East Belfast; Drinkwater Elementary in Northport, Frankfort Elementary, Weymouth Elementary in Morrill, Nickerson Elementary in Swanville; Searsport Elementary, and Stockton Springs Elementary.

In the healthcare field, those receiving awards were Drs. Ben Mailloux, Matt Molison and Steven Wilson, the Donald S. Walker Health Center in Liberty, the Searsport Health Center and the Lincolnville Regional Health Center.

The Journey to Health program at Waldo County General Hospital is offering a sampling of different dancing and exercising styles from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. on Saturdays through the winter at the Belfast Dance Studio.

The dances are easy, fun, good exercise and FREE, with no experience necessary. Come give it a try!

For the month of January, the classes will be:

• Jan. 4: Latin Belly Dance with Nathifa Shakti of Argentina.
• Jan. 11 and 25: Carnival Samba, the national dance of Brazil, with Lisa Newcomb.  Accompanied by live drumming, the class is for folks of all ages young and old.
• Jan. 18: The Madison, featured in Hairspray, with Katie Tranzillo. The Madison is a line dance that features a regular back-and-forth pattern interspersed with called steps

Those pursuing further education in a healthcare-related field may be eligible for scholarships awarded by Waldo County General Hospital. Awards are made to graduating high school seniors, college undergraduates, and employees pursuing careers in healthcare- related fields, including but not limited to, nursing, laboratory technician, surgical technician, radiology, pharmacy, therapy services, and medical records coding/transcription.

The applicant must:

1. be a high school graduate (or have a GED);

2. be a resident of Waldo County, an employee of Waldo County General Hospital; or the child of an employee;

3. be enrolled in a school of higher learning;

4. be pursuing a career in a healthcare-related program;

5. submit an “Application for Health Care Scholarship; and

6. demonstrate a need for financial assistance.

Applicants must apply annually. Students interested in obtaining a scholarship application may contact their high school guidance office or pick up an application in the Hospital’s administration building on the corner of Northport Avenue and Fahey Street, Monday through Friday, between 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m.

For further information about the scholarship program and/or to have an application mailed to you, contact Lauri McLean, Scholarship Coordinator, at 338-9302, or email lmclean@wcgh.org.

Applications must be completed and returned to Waldo County General Hospital by Friday, March 7.

The RSU 20 website has a new link called “Wellness and Education.” Linda Hartkopf, the 5210 School Health Coordinator who is paid by Waldo County General Hospital, and Carole Hallundbaek of Healthy Waldo County created the website. The easiest way to access the site is http://wellness.rsu20.org.

The April Family Dance Class will be a Family Yoga Class led by Shana Bloomstein. The FREE beginner class is from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. at the Belfast Dance Studio on April 5.

Mary Ann Dayer was thrilled with her victory

The Winter Cookout Committee at the Hospital put on a BBQ and Chowder Cookoff last week. The winners in the cookoff were:

1. Seafood Chowder (F) – made by Mary Ann Dyer with lots of assistance from Hank Lang;

2. Cream of Crab Soup (B) – made by Mia Hare; and

3. Seafood Chowder (A) – made by Darlene Ward.

To help people who believe this is the right time for them to quit smoking, the American Cancer Society’s quit-smoking program, Freshstart, is being offered at no charge on five consecutive Thursdays, April 3, 10, 17, and 24, and May 1, from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. in the classroom at Waldo County General Hospital.

Freshstart is designed for the adult smoker and emphasizes that smoking cessation is a two-step process: stopping and staying stopped. Therefore, techniques and support are shared to help keep a smoker off cigarettes.

The program is free and addresses the variety of reasons people smoke: physical addiction, habit and psychological dependency.

For more information and to register for these free classes, call Barbara Crowley at 930-2650 and leave your name and telephone number or email bcrowley@wcgh.org. A minimum of four participants are needed to hold the class.

  Downeast Magazine published the results of its Physician Survey 2014 in its January 2014 issue. Doctors in Maine were asked: “If you or a family member had a problem in the following areas, who would you select as the best specialist in Maine?”

   The votes were tallied and the peer-selected winners and runners-up were named.

   Dr. Mark Vannorsdall, a nephrologist at Waldo County General Hospital, finished first in the category of Nephrology, with doctors from Portland and Bangor named as the runners-up.

   Four winners were named in the category of Urology and one of those was Dr. Lars Ellison, who sees patients at Waldo County General Hospital as well as at Penobscot Bay Urology.

   Dr. Vannorsdall, who is certified in nephrology and internal medicine, started at Waldo County in mid-September 2011. He sees patients one or two days a week at the hospital and once a week at Pen Bay Medical Center. He also works with dialysis patients at DCI, who is located downstairs in the new building across the street from the hospital.

   He did both his residency and a fellowship at Maine Medical Center in Portland and practiced at Eastern Nephrology Associates in Greenville, NC, for 10 years. Before entering medical school at Brown University in 1992, Dr. Vannorsdall worked in business.

   Dr. Ellison started seeing patients at Waldo County General Hospital in July 2012 in addition to practicing at Pen Bay Medical Center, where he has worked for five years. He received his medical degree in 1995 from Boston University School of Medicine. He completed both his surgery and urology residencies at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H. and did a fellowship at Johns Hopkins Medical Center in Baltimore, Maryland.