Letter to Editor | Vote Yes on Public Hospital District

— from Clark and Joanne Cundy —

We would like to voice our support, and will be VOTING FOR a local Public Hospital District (PHD) here on Orcas Island. We urge our fellow islanders to come together as we have done many times in the past on different projects and goals. We feel that to get to quality long term provider sustainability here on Orcas Island the financial method has to come by the means of creating a PHD. Honestly that’s about the only qualitative way to go about it. The larger providers will not participate unless there is at least a PHD locally.

The UW has stepped up without a PHD in place in hopes that we will have one. We are very lucky they are here trying! The UW Medical Center is a nationally ranked and accredited hospital that also Manages Harborview Medical Center, the State of Washington’s best trauma center. We have had personal family experience with Harborview’s care givers and miraculous in our case, medical expertise. They are some of the brightest and the best ranked care givers in the nation.

Orcas Island’s historical medical funding methods do not create a sustainable economical environment for high quality family providers so they can thrive and plan year to year. They are left to hope for yearly philanthropic donations which may or may not be there for their practices. We can’t expect good quality Family Practice here if we islanders don’t provide the environment for them to operate and succeed.

If the PHD does not pass Orcas Island can look forward to at least a declining state of healthcare, if there will be any Family practices at all… We would still have our great EMTs and a lot of that care pressure and work would fall more to their responsibility which isn’t what they are here to do or designed for. Taking our health care needs off island isn’t right either as other communities have voted for viable funded health care in their respective areas and we would be putting added care pressure there as well…

We absolutely have no doubt that the PHD will give our physicians the best chance of being able to continue taking care of the community. VOTE YES on Orcas PHD.