Letters to the editor

On Aug. 29, Ballad Health COO Eric Deaton was at the Ballad Health Quarterly Leadership Meeting discussing the various facilities and stated that "all are financially stable." With Ballad Health announcing Sept. 9 that select outreach lab services have been sold to LabCorp, Mr. Deaton's statement may not remain true much longer.I am deeply concerned about the swift changes that have been brought about in our Ballad Health clinical labs. April 23 we were told to embrace the change of LabCorp becoming our new reference lab with a partial changeover beginning mid-May and the full switch taking effect July 4 week.Now LabCorp has contracted to purchase our outpatient lab services effective December. What impact will this have on our 29-county community? I'd like some answers before this deal finalizes.Lab managers asked a lot of questions during the meeting announcement on Sept. 9. No answers were given. Whose best interest exactly were these changes made for? What contracted protections are in place to make sure the areas 40 miles away have lab access? How will the even more critical hospital services remain open by cutting off an income stream? What is the end goal?The outreach lab services mentioned are the majority of nursing home, assisted living, doctor office, and home health labs performed in this region each day. Performed under the business name Synergy Labs, tests are completed in your local hospitals all across the region. This will cease. All outpatient and outreach collections will be LabCorp tests sent to LabCorp testing facilities.There are 18 Ballad Health hospitals in this area. Most draw your blood 24/7. LabCorp, in this same area, has only three centers. You have to go out to a 100-mile radius on LabCorp's search engine in order to find a center that is open on Saturday (9-12 in Knoxville). None are open on Sunday. Most centers operate M-F between 7 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. More centers may open in our region, but will the hours be any different than at these other 17? Our region has always needed off-hour access to lab services. Will that need change?Robyn DillKingsportWhere are the facts?I read the letter by H. Herren Floyd in Wednesday's edition wherein he adorned Trump with praise totally void of fact and instead offered stale GOP talking points.How anyone can sweep under the carpet that the GOP is offering up a proven rapist and convicted criminal for president is far beyond me. But if you wish to know the names of some of those responsible for this travesty, just read the letter and then reverse everything else written therein.Tony CerrutiChurch HillHogwash!All I can say regarding recently published letters praising the traitorous, semi-literate, intellectually inferior, pathological liar, five-times-draft-dodging (who called our valiant veterans "suckers and losers"), 34-times-finally convicted, lifelong career felon is "Hogwash!"People who still subscribe to him need to do their homework. They will be appalled, if they get the true facts.Also, this self-proclaimed "astute businessman" has had to file bankruptcy on 11 occasions and has failed to pay hundreds of legitimate debts, hosing everyone he possibly could, and continues to do so, as well as hero-worshipping every violent, bloody dictator in the world.He will try to cancel, or at least compromise, Social Security, sign a national abortion ban, take us out of NATO, and disband the Department of Education, as well as trying to end four-year presidential terms, so he can become Putin II.All that is just the tip of the iceberg. If he's returned to power, the USA will become a resurrection of the USSR.Bonnie R RomanczukColonial HeightsTired of the liesI would like to correct some lies that are being spread by vice president, Kamala Harris, and her running mate. The women who died in Georgia after taking the abortion pill died from complications of the abortion.There is no state in the U.S. where it is against the law to treat a woman when her life is at stake. It is not against the law to treat a woman for a miscarriage or incomplete abortion. It is not and never has been against the law to treat an ectopic pregnancy. I get tired of the lies.David E. Schilling, M.D.Church Hill