On Feb. 14, the Sun Journal did an exposé on the exorbitant salaries of local health care executives. Wow! Do they make some money and benefits or what!

Maybe Paul Dionne, chairman of the board at CMH, can explain to all of us what, in fact, Peter Chalke does for me, if and when I were to have a heart attack. I do not see an “MD” next to his name. Does it really take a $1,000,000-plus salary to convince a great doctor to come to this city? If it does, they need to take another look at how they do business.

If we want to control health care costs, get rid of the fat cats at the top that are sucking the system dry.

The top three executives at St. Mary’s together earn in excess of $1,250,000 per year. How many patients does it take to cover their salaries?

Those salaries should be based on the prevailing wages of the area(s) covered by the hospital. Dionne’s answer that we have to “pay good people” such high salaries in order to keep them is not the correct answer. I would bet that there are many talented people who would accept those jobs at a lot less money because they would want to help those in need, not line their pockets with cash.

Those people are no different from the Wall Street executives who have been ripping off the public for years.

Shame on all of them for their greed.

Paul Parquette, Lewiston