EAST MACHIAS – A proposal to change the status of Down East Community Hospital will be discussed during a public meeting this week at Washington Academy.

Hospital trustees announced last fall that they were considering applying for designation as a “critical-access” hospital because the 36-bed facility lost $300,000 in the first nine months of 2001.

The designation would entitle the hospital to higher payments from Medicaid and Medicare – the insurance programs that cover 73 percent of the hospital’s patients. In order to qualify, the hospital would have to limit its acute care beds to 15, with an average length of stay of 96 hours.

The proposal was controversial, and after a round of community meetings, the trustees voted not to pursue the change, but said they would review that decision.

The public meeting will be at 6 p.m. Wednesday, June 26, in the academy’s Alumni Gymnasium.

The meeting is being sponsored by a group of residents, including Ruth Leubecker, a columnist for the Machias Valley News Observer, according to Chip Gavin, an Eastport communications consultant who is working with the group.

The meeting will include presentations by a panel composed of Dr. James Whalen, president of the hospital’s medical staff; John Sprague, a resident of Marshfield; and Sandra Altmannsberger, a Machias selectman, Gavin said.

Carolyn Foster, president of the hospital’s board of trustees, will attend the meeting, he said.

Gavin said the organizers of Wednesday’s meeting understand that the board will again take up the issue at its July meeting.