Editor:

This letter is written in response to "Almost Universally Terrible" in the NCJ's March 3 Mailbox. Nourishing food is important for good health.

Seventy percent of one's immune system is located in your GI tract, aka "gut." Because the immune system is intricately related to the gut microbiome, if it is exposed to bacteria-stripping factors like "poor diet" and antibiotics, it will impact one's ability to remain healthy and to heal sickness.

Providence St. Joseph has been traveling the corporate road for many years. The merger of these two corporations has only exacerbated the poor quality that continues to evolve. I watched as productivity charts for nurses began to grace the hallway walls. Nurses and ancillary hospital employees hold informational pickets in front of the hospital when their concerns for staffing and patient safety go unheard and unchanged. Fairly recently, the newest financial savings has come by way of contracting out the food services department to an outside entity.

We all know how much the price of "good, nourishing food" costs these days. But profits over patients impact what patients receive for their meals. Corporate healthcare for profit has resulted in our broken healthcare system, impacting every single department in any hospital. Every nonprofit hospital has a foundation through which their profits can be manipulated and hidden. The only way to fix this is to take the profit out of our healthcare system by eliminating the profit-driven greed found in hospital administrations and the health insurance industry.

We have a good system in place now that functions with a 2- to 3-percent overhead cost, rather than the exorbitant administrative salaries and bonuses provided at the expense of patients. The name is Medicare. We need to improve it and provide it to everyone. Everyone needs access to healthcare!

Kathryn Donahue, Blue Lake