Town Manager Stuart Beckley (left) and Resident Stephen Granlund (right), discuss updates to the Mary Lane Campus during the Select Board meeting on Sept. 17.
Reminder Publishing screen capture by Tyler Garnet
WARE — During the Select Board meeting on Sept. 17, the board received positive updates on the status of the Mary Lane Hospital demolition project and Gilbert Trust fund.
Town Manager Stuart Beckley provided an update about the meeting he had with state Rep. Todd Smola (R-Warren), Dr. Howard Trietsch from the Hospital Review Committee, Baystate CEO Peter Banko and his team regarding Mary Lane Hospital demolition.
In a follow-up email from Baystate CEO Peter Banko, he agreed to put a halt on demolition of Mary Lane Hospital buildings that was scheduled for Oct. 17, while the town continues to work to find another provider.
Banko stated, “We will be flexible on the timeline for demolition of the buildings on the Mary Lane campus to afford a reasonable period of time for interested parties to evaluate potential development.”
Banko also announced that Baystate would work towards returning healthcare, in some form, to Ware and will work with the town on a memorial.
Banko said, “We are committed to working with the Ware Historical Commission to identify an appropriate, meaningful and visible way to memorialize Mary Lane and its place in the history of Ware. We are committed to exploring ways to address the health care needs, including a physical Baystate presence, in Ware and the surrounding communities on our own, with a partner or through a third-party relationship.”
Baystate will continue to work with the attorney general’s office regarding the Gilbert Trust to benefit health and healthcare in the community.
Banko said, “Those funds must absolutely be used to meet the intent of the trust and benefit health and healthcare in the community. We will continue the open and transparent communication developed [at our meeting] including initiating regularly scheduled meetings with organizations who are similarly committed to addressing all the issues related to the Mary Lane transition.”
Banko concluded that Baystate will continue the open and transparent communications developed with Beckley and Smola, including regularly scheduled meetings with them and organizations committed to issues related to Mary Lane.
Beckley said he feels good with the direction of this site after the meeting.
He said, “That meeting was extremely helpful and considerate of Mr. Banko in terms of sort of softening the direction Baystate has been holding and be willing to work with the community on resolving what goes on this site. Slowing the pace of demolition to allow time to have that discussion and to review the trust and work on how the trust will be. There seems to be willingness based on Mr. Banko’s memo to work with the community at large to define the use of the trust.”
For background on the Gilbert trust, the Ware town website provides a history. The hospital was the product of a trust set up by Lewis Gilbert.
It explains that after Lewis Gilbert’s passed away in 1919, he left his large South Street home and property to the Ware Visiting Nurse and Hospital Association along with $500,000 in trust to endow the hospital, so long as it “be forever known as ‘The Mary Lane Hospital,’” in memory of his wife.
Gilbert’s will stated that with his endowment he wished to allow the WVNHA to “suitably and more effectively care for the sick especially of the town of Ware and of the village of Gilbertville” and to “provide hospital grounds and buildings where the sick may be properly cared for gratuitously or at a reasonable charge according to the circumstances of each.”
According to the history, in February 2020, the Gilbert trust contained nearly $6 million.
Beckley provided an update to the trust today and said, “In terms of the trust, I think we, they are coming to a point where they’re going to be discussing needs of what that trust should be used for, how much that trust is, how large the trust and the next steps of what will be the needs and conveying that to the attorney general and Baystate to get an agreement with them as well as the trustee.”
The Friends of Mary Lane Hospital will have a meeting with the attorney general’s office on Sept. 26. Baystate will also be attending to discuss the trust and willingness to work with the community.
Resident Stephen Granlund, an outspoken critic of Baystate Health and its plans for the Mary Lane campus, was at the Select Board meeting to discuss the updates and upcoming meeting.
He said, “We’re hopeful not only in the case of the Gilbert Trust money but there’s a lot of other money, trusts and donations and bequeaths that eventually it would be nice if the money was used here for its original intent rather than having been spent in Springfield as it has been for close to 20 years. I’m pleased to see there’s been a little bit of change in direction and there is some headway at least in the area of the Gilbert Trust money and of course we like it to be under local control.”
One thing presented by the Hospital Review Committee was the strong desire and need of the community was to have a healthcare facility.
Granlund said he will report back to the Select Board after the meeting on Sept. 26.
