— from Spirit Eagle —
It appears that the board is attempting to reinvent the wheel by considering bringing in Island Hospital again. Didn’t we have them running the clinic for two different five year periods, already? UW was another disaster. We need a locally run-clinic that offers a wide range of services, including alternative modalities (ie chiropractic, nutritional education, acupuncture, and movement classes [which are especially good for the elderly.])
Throwing tax dollars at a decision does not solve the problem. We can achieve a healthy community by running the clinic ourselves.
With Island Hospital at the helm we will likely have as many or more unnecessary airlift flights for people with chest pain. Unnecessary, because we have a cardiologist on Island with all of the equipment needed to diagnose whether or not a particular patient’s pain is due to a heart attack, or one of six other conditions all for which they do not need to be flown off island. Currently, when the EMTs are called for chest pain the only thing they can do is to fly people off the island, for they don’t have a cardiologist on staff, nor the equipment necessary.
It seems to me that although the board is, I’m sure, hardworking, putting islanders health and care in the hands of Island Hospital again is going backwards to something that didn’t work before. Perhaps, it’s time for the board to rethink what is cost effective and viable for our island community.
It would be more work, yes, but putting together and funding a coalition of local health care providers, including alternative health care providers, would be the healthier and most cost effective option for the island. There is even federal funding if this Health Care District can prove that it is serving the low-income community and limiting off island emergency room visits that cost Medicare a lot of money by providing preventative healthcare such as nutritional education, massage, in-home care, acupuncture, chiropractic, movement therapy, etc.
If we can reduce hospital visits by implementing preventative medicine on the island, we will have a healthier population and potential funding from federal grant programs. This seems like the right road to peruse. It may be more work for the board, but it will be worth it, and it will make us all healthier.
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I strongly suggest you watch the Island Hospital presentation to the community via the Health District Town Hall zoom meeting on July 30th at 4:30 pm. You may submit questions of them through the Heath District web site via email that will be answered by Island Hospital representatives at the July 30 meeting, or by chat at the meeting. Anyone interested in the future of our clinic should make it a point to attend that meeting!
So Islanders raised about 750,000 to support the UW entry into the market (if my memory is correct.) Recently, we learned that 10-15,000,000 was provided to the community businesses due to COVID. Now if that had been invested by a smart islander (Joe Cohen?) and yielded 7-8% annually (realistic for long term investing) it seems that the residents underwriting of the UW system would last about forever…