— from Martha and Tim Fuller —
We are writing to express our strong support for the establishment of an Orcas Island Public Hospital District and Board of Commissioners, and the future levy to fund the District.
We are relative newcomers to the island. We appreciate how welcome we feel and are glad to be part of this community – more so than any other place we’ve lived. We continue to be surprised and awed by the natural and cultural assets that Orcas offers to residents and visitors.
However, the lack of a reliable health care delivery system on the island is very troubling. It is irresponsible and unsustainable to rely on the generosity of donors, and the willingness of practitioners to operate in the red, as a long-term solution for providing our primary and urgent health care. Long waits for non-emergency local appointments, time and cost incurred to go off-island for care, and the frequency of medical-related airlifts are frustrations that Island residents may be accustomed to. But we shouldn’t continue to accept this as the status quo, when we now have the opportunity to create a viable structure for ensuring access to basic health care resources.
It is unnerving to say yes to a new taxing authority – not yet knowing who will lead it, or how much it will ask us, as property owners, to pay. Yet, without a stable funding stream, we can expect to have fewer and fewer on-island health care providers. That means some of our young families, elders, and friends and neighbors with chronic conditions will relocate – an economic and human loss for all of us. We have faith and confidence that the commissioners we elect will make wise choices to build the health care delivery infrastructure we want and deserve.
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A Public Hospital District (PHD) levy to assure regular primary health care and urgent care is a pro-active investment in our community and in the health of its people.
Healthy people are more successful at maintaining jobs, attending/completing school, parenting, earning a living, contributing to taxes and paying their bills. They experience less stress, better mental health and require less “sick-care” (versus preventive care) in the long run.
Although the immediate goal is to assure primary care and urgent care on Orcas, a PHD would serve as a cornerstone for a healthy community now and in years to come.
Yes,we want and deserve reliable health care,but nothing in this life is free.We have to be realistic and step up to the plate and be willing to pay what it costs to insure that we get what we deserve.VOTE FOR IT.
I am always amazed at people who move to Orcas and a month later they know everything….. Folks, a hospital district does not mean a hospital and it does not mean all the specialists we need so we don’t ever have to go off the Island for medical care, and in 20 years here I have never had a long wait for a medical appointment….I often get seen the same day or next day…. the long waits I experience are when I go to mainland providers (UW for example). Voting for the Hospital District is one thing, believing that it will end all your troubles and/or inconveniences is another. Personally, I’m a little offended whn you call me irresponsible.