Letter to Editor | Who is Island Hospital?

— from Carl Buttke —

I signed the petition to Orcas Island Health Care District to allow UW to continue operating the UW Orcas Clinic as it has been. I did this for the following reasons:

1. Now is not the time to change health providers to operate our clinic in the middle of a pandemic. Community participation currently is severely limited without the ability to attend meetings, to comment and ask questions directly to our commissioners before a final decision is made. What is the rush?
2. UW Medicine is a world class operation in which we currently participate including the “Epic” medical records system.
3. What are our options? Two potential partners have so far said they will respond to the District’s request for proposals (RFP): Orcas Family Health Center and Island Hospital.
4. So, who is Island Hospital? According to Island Hospital.Com, “Island Hospital is a public hospital district ( Skagit County Hospital District No. 2) comprising boundaries include Fidalgo, Cypress, Guemes and Sinclair islands”. It has five publicly elected Commissioners who govern the hospital district. It also includes the Island Hospital Foundation, a nonprofit foundation which raises money to support the hospital and its commitment to community health. Island Hospital is a hospital district similar to ours, except we have a clinic and it has a hospital.
5. Accepting a proposal from Island Hospital would give the control of operations to another hospital district and its commissioners elected by residents of another county. An outside public commission would control the operation of our clinic and our commission would oversee that activity. Does this make any sense especially with Island Hospital’s history who left our clinic twice previous to UW Medicine participation?

One thing we can learn from Island Hospital is to have a foundation or a health auxiliary to fundraise for our clinic needs beyond its operations.