Thank you Julia Wells and Mary Breslauer for a superbly professional work of journalism regarding the Martha’s Vineyard Hospital governance issue. (Hospital faces Questions on Governance, Community Relations, June 29.)

What is clear to a growing number of we Islanders is that the board of trustees for our Island hospital are simply taking governance orders from MGH/Partners and have lost sight of what it means to truly be a community hospital. Apparently the board members believe that the Vineyard hospital is simply the MGH/Partners’ satellite operation and it is, therefore, acceptable to take orders from Boston regardless of the impact of those orders on the quality of health care we receive — and pay for — here.

Your article states that “at the urging of the citizens group” chairman Tim Sweet and the trustees have agreed to form a community advisory board and to add a person from the Island community to the hospital governance committee. You acknowledge that “no time frame has been set for the changes.”

In fact, according to a document Mr. Sweet signed and was shared with members of the citizens group, the trustees will also “bring on outside community member (members) onto committee to hire a consultant to do a review of board governance and effectiveness . . . ”

These are promises that we can only hope that Mr. Sweet, and the board of trustees, intend to keep. Trustees have a legal fiduciary responsibility to act in the best interest of the organization they serve.

However, there is no timeline for taking these corrective steps and no powers of enforcement or penalty for failure to act. And promises are too easily broken.

Perhaps I am too skeptical. I hope to be pleasantly surprised.

Susan Silk
West Tisbury