TPA Statement on Recent Shore Health System Decision 

Over the past 18 months TPA has been a relentless public advocate for the selection of land adjacent to Easton, made available to Shore Health System by the Talbot County Council, as the site for a proposed new regional medical center.  We commissioned a professionally produced video documenting the history of the hospital’s close relationship with our community and offered this as part of a program presented to a packed house at the Avalon Theater.  The video highlighted the geographic superiority of the County’s proposed site, and documented the devastating financial effect of a potential relocation of our hospital to a site at Routes 50 and 404.

With the help of a volunteer citizens’ committee, we organized a petition drive that accumulated 10,043 signatures, presented to the Board of the University of Maryland Medical System (which owns SHS), documenting the widespread local support for location of the new hospital at the County Council site.  We met with the chairman of the UMMS Board; certain of us lobbied and met directly with Governor O’Malley and Comptroller Franchot to solicit their support for the Council site; and we made presentations of our video and Avalon program to groups and organizations throughout the County.   

We were gratified to learn, therefore, that SHS now has selected the County Council site adjacent to Easton as the preferred location for the new hospital.  And while we suspect that SHS leadership will not acknowledge the significance of our efforts, we believe that TPA’s activities, and the public support that we mustered, indeed had an effect upon the final decision making.    We recently received a message, from Comptroller Franchot’s chief deputy, reacting to the selection of the County site, praising TPA for its “politically focused message, disciplined and bipartisan outreach ... both Peter and I were extremely impressed.” 

Read the Star Democrat article regarding this decision