New West Network

My Page: Sutton R. Stokes

Missoula Notebook

Community Medical Center President Steve Carlson has offered to meet with Birth Center supporters to see which — if any — of their concerns can be addressed in the design of Community’s new Women and Infants Center. In a comment left on last week’s article, Carlson provided his phone number (327-4003) and asked for input, writing that “our goal is to develop a program that can accommodate the needs of all patients, including those interested in a more natural experience.”

In other words, Community Medical Center is turning the Birth Center into a more traditionally “medical” space, but is willing to redesign its hospital — or part of it — to resemble the Birth Center.

I’m no expert, but this seems like a complicated way to try to meet the needs of the growing segment of Missoula parents who are interested in natural birth. [more]

Missoula Notebook

Community Medical Center will purchase the assets of the Missoula Birth Center, lease the space from the building's owner, Jolyn Montgomery, and convert the facility into a primary-care practice, under the terms of an agreement reached today. The new practice, which will be operated by Community Medical Center’s clinic, Community Physician Group, will no longer offer birthing-related services. New patients hoping to begin prenatal care there will be turned away, and expecting patients must make other arrangements for their deliveries, says Community Medical Center’s director of business development, Karen Sullivan. [more]

MIssoula Notebook

Butte, America, a documentary that chronicles the history of what was once the best-known mining town in the world, debuts this Saturday at the Mother Lode Theater in Butte. The film, directed by Pamela Roberts and written by Eugene Corr and Edwin Dobb, is narrated by Golden Globe-winner Gabriel Byrne.

The Butte show is sold out, but tickets are still available for showings on February 6 at Bozeman’s Emerson Theater and February 21 at Helena’s Myrna Loy Center. Additional screenings in Billings, Great Falls, and Missoula are planned for the fall, but dates are not yet final. [more]

Patient Group Advocates to Keep Births at Center

The Missoula Birth Center, reeling in the wake of the sudden death late last year of its founder and driving force, Dr. Lynn Montgomery, is in negotiations with Community Medical Center for a sale, partnership, or other arrangement. Both organizations confirmed the talks and a deal could be reached as early as this week.

Since Montgomery died suddenly of a heart attack in October at age 51, concerns about the future of the center have been rippling through the community, especially among its patients.

Gia Randono is one of about two dozen Birth Center patients who over the past few months have been circulating petitions and writing letters asking either St. Patrick’s Hospital or Community Medical Center to help keep the Birth Center in operation. The Birth Center and Community Medical Center are the only facilities in Missoula with dedicated labor and delivery rooms.

“It would be so unfortunate to lose not only Dr. Montgomery but also the birth center,” Randono says. “It was still developing. There was so much potential there.” [more]

Missoula Notebook

How time flies when you’re eating fresh eggs. As of yesterday, it’s already been one year since the Missoula city council voted to allow chickens inside city limits.

Public opinion at the time largely favored this move, at least judging by the horde of people who descended on a city-council hearing last fall wearing t-shirts reading “I’m pro-chicken and I vote.” Councilwoman Stacy Rye, who proposed the chicken ordinance, told me recently that she’s never seen as much interest from constituents as she did on the chicken issue — and that that interest was overwhelmingly positive.

Still, some people were worried. [more]

Missoula Notebook

Considering that hunters are supposed to be a dying breed, there sure were a lot of pickup trucks jammed into the pullouts along route 200 east of Missoula last Tuesday, and a lot of men in camouflage-patterned orange vests standing around next to them.

It was Veteran’s Day, and my neighbor Vin and I were headed out to some Forest Service land near Nine Mile Prairie Road to hunt for deer. [more]

Missoula Notebook

Rubber gloves.

Knife.

These are the last two items listed on an index card that’s been lying on our kitchen table for the last few days. My eyes fell on this part of the list Sunday morning as I was making some oatmeal, and I pointed out to Amy that the only way to make it sound more ominous would be to add “duct tape.” [more]

Missoula Notebook

Instead of wasting Election Day in front of my computer, pretending to work but actually studying last-minute political prognostications while waiting desperately for the first returns to start rolling in, I spent 14 hours in an elementary school gymnasium, chatting with white-haired retired women and serving as what Missoula County Elections Clerk Vickie Zeier calls a “champion of democracy."

In other words, I was a poll worker.
[more]

Missoula Notebook

Soon not only an ambulance but a fire truck were stopped on the street in front of me, their whirling red lights looping and crawling across the darkened storefronts and not exactly helping me feel normal again. Men and women in blue shirts crouched on the sidewalk around me, hooking me up to a portable EKG, taking my pulse, and posing existential questions about what day it was and what city I was in. [more]

Missoula Notebook

On Wednesday afternoon, a contingent of Barack Obama supporters were standing in a hallway on the second floor of the Missoula County Courthouse. They had walked down from the campaign’s headquarters on Front Street to vote early as a group, and now they were waiting for the last stragglers to reemerge from room 201, which is serving as the county’s early-voting polling place through noon on November 3rd.

“Three more weeks,” sighed James Anderson, 25, an Army veteran and one of the volunteers who had organized the event. [more]