Letter: Hospital’s big-city attitude

Good news for the hordes of people chagrined at the discontinuance of the blood tests offered up at health fairs at Aspen Valley Hospital for decades for $38 to $50 instead of hundreds or thousands of dollars: One can walk into Valley View Hospital, go to the lab and ask for a health-fair test — no appointment necessary — and the cost is $40. Don’t forget to fast.

With all the advertising the two hospitals are doing in local papers lately, I gather there is a bit of a competition going on. This move by Aspen Valley Hospital is a great incentive to the upvalley curious to check out Valley View when they go in for that blood test.

I wonder if Aspen Valley Hospital is acquiring a big-city attitude with all this expansion. It shatters a great community event in the health fair (most people go there only for the blood test anyway), and now I see that as of June 1, the public has to start paying for coffee. Paying for the coffee in itself is no big deal. The connotation of the gesture was a very big deal, like “Welcome to Aspen Valley Hospital.”

Pat Milligan

Aspen Village