Ailing mill retiree suffers a setback Martin scheduled for surgery today

MILLINOCKET – A Great Northern Paper retiree who was waiting for a bankruptcy ruling to decide whether to have surgery now has no choice.

Claude Martin, 58, of Millinocket suffered a setback Wednesday and his surgery is scheduled for today.

Martin, who suffers from gastrointestinal problems, was originally scheduled to have the surgery next week and was worried about whether his company-paid insurance would still cover it. The surgery is expected to cost $10,000.

According to a judge’s ruling in Bangor on Wednesday, GNP must continue to provide health care benefits to retirees. But GNP officials warned there is no cash to pay for such benefits, leaving the retirees faced with trying to collect at a later date.

Martin’s wife, Cecile Martin, said whoever ends up paying for the operation is no longer a top concern.

“Claude has no choice,” she said during an interview late Wednesday afternoon. “Claude had an emergency event about 1:30 this afternoon. The surgeon actually left his office and came right to our house to help him rather than have me incur the cost of an ambulance ride to the emergency room.”

Martin said the surgeon, Dr. Mark Kowalski of Millinocket, described the situation as an emergency and said her husband needed surgery immediately.

Claude Martin was resting in bed at home Wednesday night, but if his condition worsened, the surgery was to be done immediately.

Cecile Martin said her husband went upstairs around noon after learning the situation at the paper mills was “going bad” in the court.

Being a veteran registered nurse at Millinocket Regional Hospital, Cecile Martin said she was fortunate that she could care for her husband at home.

Cecile Martin has been trying to obtain health insurance through the hospital, but can’t until her husband receives a letter of termination from GNP.

She said Marie Vienneau, MRH’s chief executive officer, has been working hard to help the couple through the hospital’s attorneys.

“Her hands are tied until there is a court ruling,” Cecile Martin said. “[Vienneau] is being a great patient advocate for everyone in the region. They [hospital officials] are trying their best to work this out for the welfare of not just Claude and me, but for all of the people who use MRH,” she said.

Vienneau said through their attorneys the hospital and Maine Health Alliance were trying to receive clarification on who was and who was not covered by the paper company’s health insurance.

“To this day, we have treated everybody as though they still have health insurance even though we have not received payment,” she said. “At this point, we have not billed anybody for care. We are sitting watching and waiting just like everyone else.”

Vienneau said the hospital is working with the Maine Health Alliance to try to find other types of insurance plans that might be available for people who are older than 65 and are on Medicare and for people who are not on Medicare. She said if viable plans were found, the hospital would invite representatives of the plan to come and provide information in public sessions.

Vienneau said hospital officials have reviewed what the cash flow projections would be with and without the mills and how it would affect them.

“We have curbed spending for things like travel, advertising, education and overtime,” she said. “Depending on the final outcome we may have to make some fairly major changes in order to fit the financial reality of a smaller service area.”

She said that if not for the hospital’s wise business decision to become designated as a “critical access hospital,” it would be much less capable of “weathering this storm.” The designation will provide the hospital with higher Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements.

Late Wednesday, Cecile Martin said she and her husband were relieved to hear the bankruptcy judge had ordered GNP to pay for retiree’s health services.

Martin said her only prayer is that someone will buy GNP’s paper mills.

“We will never see the Millinocket we knew and loved ever again. But out of the ashes something will rise again,” she said. “It won’t be entirely bad. It will be a different area. Someday we will all look back and what is really going to count is not the events in our lives, but how we handled them.”