With regard to all the mass shootings in this country, a message to staunch gun rights advocates: Keep your selfish thoughts and prayers to yourself. The only thing they do is provide cover.

Stone Valiant

Grantham

The DH brand change raises several questions

I recently received an information packet from Dartmouth Health announcing their new logo. The package included seven stickers, a magnet and an invitation to choose a giveaway of Dartmouth Health products – fleece vests, t-shirts, water bottles and other items with the new name. My question and my concern is: what is the point of all this?

If Dartmouth (fill in the blank for last name) wants to change their name to be more “relevant” they could simply do so by changing their name on the invoices I receive. I would have understood the point very easily.

What is the point of this name change? Where can a patient go locally that is not a DH connected hospital? We are a captive audience. No matter what your name is, we will always go where our doctors are.

The larger question is, how much did this rebranding cost? There is the cost of new stationery, brochures, handouts, etc., which each of the hospitals in the DH universe will have to reorder. There are Internet banner ads, TV and media ads, and mass mailings promoting this new name. Has an outside marketing firm been hired? Did they do focus groups? Have surveys been carried out? There are costs associated with every step they took to switch brands. At a time when small hospitals are struggling to deliver services locally, I wish all of this money had been spent on helping small hospitals’ bottom line or giving raises to all the frontline staff who helped us through the last two years.

If DH wants to improve its image, it could easily do so by giving its affiliates time to better serve their patients. Believe me, if I had the time I needed with my primary care provider when I had a problem, I would sing DH’s praises. Instead, I am pushed to self-diagnose 15-20 minutes before my appointment and use my-DH.org for all my health needs.

If Dartmouth Health is truly “The Best Where It Matters Most” as their banner ad proclaims, I challenge DH to publish in this newspaper a breakdown of the cost of this new marketing campaign. I guess they didn’t get a grant to cover those costs — so the costs are passed on to us, the patients. To what end?

Nancy Kingsley

New London

Thetford should use ARPA funds to support childcare

In our third year of the pandemic, families with young children are still dealing with the stresses of COVID in ways that many other segments of the population have given up on. Still without a vaccine for children under 5, there is no obvious way for child care centers to keep their doors open while maintaining a standard of health for children in attendance.

My husband and I recently moved to Thetford with our two young daughters who were 1.5 and 3.5 at the time of the move. We both work full time and need full time child care. We contacted at least a dozen child care centers within a 20-25 minute drive. Most responded quickly, only to tell us we would be added to very long waiting lists – some even said it would be over a year before we got in.

Like many parents, especially mothers, I thought I would probably have to quit my job when I moved because we couldn’t find daycare for our two children. By a stroke of luck, we got two places at the Little Feet Children’s Center in East Thetford because a second teacher had just been hired at the time of my application.

While the care is wonderful, health restrictions due to COVID have made childcare quite unreliable and difficult to justify the cost. I certainly don’t expect the centers to bear the burden of lost tuition when children are excluded due to illness. These centers are already operating on a tight budget in order to keep care at a reasonable price. However, as a parent, it is exhausting (and sometimes impossible) trying to work with children at home and paying for care that you end up not getting.

It feels like the needs of children under 5 and the challenges faced by families with young children have been overlooked at this point. I strongly urge the city of Thetford to allocate ARPA funds to keep open the daycare centers that the city so badly needs in these particularly difficult times. Without them, the child care crisis will only get worse.

Elizabeth Sax

Thetford

Senator Prentiss has served District 5 well

I have known Senator Sue Prentiss (D-District 5) since she arrived in the Upper Valley in 1992. Sue worked for my family business as a paramedic and paramedic. We have taught EMT courses together and we have both served as city councilors and mayors. More importantly, I consider Sue a friend of the family.

When I was appointed to the Claremont City Council, then elected Mayor of Claremont, one of my first calls was to Sue. A trusted resource and proven leader, I knew then what I know now: I can count on Sue. For the past two years, Sue has represented Claremont in the State Senate. Time and time again, Sue has carried our voice in Concord and raised the needs of the Claremont government and working families. I am grateful to Sue for her efforts on our behalf and I am sorry to see her lose as a senator due to a redistribution.

I understand that Sue will be running for re-election in the redesigned Senate District 5, which no longer includes Claremont. For communities not previously in District 5, I can assure you that Sue Prentiss is a Senator for all of us.

Dale Girard

Claremont

The NRA meeting is in poor taste

It is Wednesday morning in America that I write this, and I, like many others, did not sleep last night as the bodies of 19 children in third and fourth grades lay in their school in Uvalde, Texas, waiting to be identified before the dead. the bodies could be released to awaiting and grieving relatives gathered at a nearby community center. We already knew that it was a teenager, ineligible to legally buy a beer anywhere in Texas but who could legally buy a weapon of war, who had committed this heinous crime.

This weekend, at a meeting of the National Rifle Association in Texas, attendees have already been told that they should not bring their guns, but that they will still have to go through metal detectors. At this meeting, attendees will shout and cheer as former President Trump, Texas Senator Ted Cruz and Texas Governor Greg Abbott address them. Who will these attendees be toasting to as they gather in the bars! ? Something is very wrong in America. When will Americans come together to solve this problem?

John Mudge

Lyme