I am bothered by the lack of clarity surrounding the needs of the new clinic. Last week’s Beachcomber article states that “Neighborcare …needs to make up for its projected losses the first two years: $380K,” followed by “all money raised will go to … startup and operations” (“Fulton Family Medicine to close as fundraising for Neighborcare expands,” Sept. 7).

Later, it was written that Tag Gornall plans to stand on street corners asking for help.

Still later, we read again the other health networks described their annual losses ‘…to be about $500K.’

And that is followed by more talk of fundraising.

Fellow islanders, this isn’t a car wash to support a senior class trip to Mexico. We need to understand how much it will cost to get which services over the long haul, and how much of that cannot be counted on to be covered by existing sources, i.e.., how much must islanders provide outside of their normal insurance payments.

Which are the nominal and/or capital startup costs and which are recurring costs we can expect to be part of the normal fiscal year?

An island clinic sustained by charitable contributions from wealthier people does not seem like a good business plan. For us to come up with a workable plan, we need to see in The Beachcomber a clearly defined breakout of those numbers:

-How much more capital to start up?

-How much anticipated for normal operation?

-How much of each category can be reasonably expected from existing institutional sources, including patient insurance?

-How much more must the community raise, both as a kind of lump sum at the outset, and as yearly contributions?

Only when we have that information in hand can we begin an intelligent discussion about the best way to get there.

— John Weinshel