Ware looks to $50B in Trump’s rural health fund to fill gap still left by Mary Lane closure

WARE — Neighbors still aching from the 2023 demise of Baystate Mary Lane hospital are looking to the Trump administration's $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program for help.

Just south of the Quabbin, the rural towns on the border of Worcester and Hampden counties want a share of the $1 billion that Massachusetts might get from the fund over five years. The money was included in the Republican policy and tax bill that passed this summer.

"Very excited about that," said Cynthia Allen Bourcier, part of a group called Mary Lane Health Inc. "It brings money into the town to bring real health care back here."

The domestic policy bill passed over the objections of Massachusetts lawmakers who were concerned, in part, over its impact on health care funding.

But Allen Bourcier said this particular portion of the bill addresses the need for better health care in thinly populated areas.

"If we don't as a nation, do something about this, we end up giving up on rural communities," she said.

Since Baystate closed Mary Lane, area residents and their neighbors have been traveling to Baystate Wing in Palmer or to Springfield.

"There is nothing where we are right now," she said.

Massachusetts submitted an application to the Rural Health Transformation Program via the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in November.

The application focuses on access, opportunities to improve the health and well-being of rural residents, facilities and training providers. It makes no specific references to individual towns or cities, but lists Ware and its neighbors in the western-central part of the state as rural communities of concern.

Allen Bourcier said she's been told the state will hear back by the end of December.

Friends of Mary Lane is talking with health care providers about bringing urgent care and more health care choices in general to Ware, hopefully, she said, at the former Mary Lane site now owned by Baystate Health.

Her group also is seeking local control of an estimated $17 million in trust funds, including about $7 million from the Lewis Gilbert Trust. Baystate hopes to tap that money given to Mary Lane over the years to bring more primary care — doctors' offices that wouldn't necessarily be open at odd hours like an urgent care — back to town at a site not at the old campus.

Baystate also responded to the state's call for input, said health system spokeswoman Maura Tobias in an email.

"In partnership with town and state officials, as well as Baystate Health physician leadership, we submitted a response that aims to expand the Baystate Health Family Medicine Residency Programs and primary care/convenient care/urgent care," Tobias wrote.

The town of Ware also sent the state a letter back in October when officials solicited input , said Stuart B. Beckley, the town manager.

So did neighboring towns, like Monson and Brookfield, he said.

"Ultimately, the money will come to the state, and they will decide where it would be used," he said.

But the goal is a health care center.

"Of significant size that would serve not just Ware but the region," he said.

That was the old Mary Lane, Allen Bourcier said.

Baystate closed Mary Lane in stages, citing a lack of demand. Of the roughly 28 patients a day who sought care there in 2021, it was typical for 24 to have common, minor, non-urgent conditions like cold or flu symptoms and sprains, which could be treated in a primary care setting.

Nearly half of the outpatient center's capacity is unused during the day, and 90% is unused overnight.

This summer, Baystate demolished most of the structures on the Mary Lane campus, except for the Wetherby Building, built in 1923, and part of the Storrs Building, also thought to have historic value.

Allen Bourcier's group is advocating for a practice that includes urgent care — services residents want in a hurry and close by — and at the Mary Lane site.

Her group also wants the Community Foundation of Western Massachusetts, not Baystate, to control the $17 million in trust funds.

The Mary Lane Hospital main building has been spared from demolition, and advocates in the area want to see it returned to supporting the community's health care needs. (Douglas Hook / The Republican, File)Douglas Hook

Baystate, which owns the property, has plans ultimately to create a primary care health care practice in Ware, but not at the site.

"Specific to our commitment to developing a primary care and convenient care site located off the Baystate Mary Lane campus, we continue to collaborate on our plans with our working group," Tobias wrote in a statement. "We have identified a site and are awaiting the attorney general's review of the Gilbert Trust before we are able to proceed with implementation."

Beckley said this week that Baystate is waiting for trustee Bank of America to take the matter to Probate Court for a decision.

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