Hospital Town Hall
Dear Editor: After watching as much as I could of the Town Hall meeting, I am compelled to submit this letter to the editor and Assembly members, as it includes talking points I would have made, had my dog not had emergency surgery, requiring me to stay home to care for her and miss the town hall. I saw enough of the meeting to see that it was carefully planned to ensure that SEARHC staff were at most, or every table, and it was facilitated to foster the appearance of collaboration or consensus, but it seemed like a false representation of our community, like the deck was stacked by SEARHC.
Our Sitka Community Hospital has provided much-needed health care services to many Sitka residents for years. In spite of financially rough times, overall, SCH is currently doing quite well, compared to the past, thanks to Rob Allen and Steve Hartford’s diligence in bringing SCH into the black. This state of improved fiscal health for our hospital begs the question of why we might give up our precious health care resource to SEARHC? With SCH’s improved fiscal health, what inspires our Assembly to continue down the path of trying to get rid of our hospital? Why has the Assembly denied the citizens of Sitka a vote to possibly hold off for just one year, as though the wisdom of four Assembly members prevails over that of the citizenry of Sitka? Outside consultants do not know enough about our community needs, or the idiosyncrasies of how SEARHC works to be relied upon for their opinions. SEARHC serves as a hospital for most native beneficiaries in Southeast Alaska, not just Sitka. Their clientele is much more than the 9000 mentioned by Quorum, so Quorum’s assessment of SCH viability isn’t completely accurate. Consultants are spoon-fed what the powers-that-be want them to know, so the outcome isn’t exactly unbiased either. SEARHC says they want to take over SCH to help our community, but I believe it is to subsidize the federal health care system that we are all already paying for, not to help Sitkans receive better health care. The end result will be diluted health care for ALL of us, including SEARHC Beneficiaries, not better health care. Both SEARHC and SCH have a lot of qualities they offer to our citizenry, and we need them both.
Why should we avoid an SCH takeover by SEARHC? There are way too many red flags on this deal offered to Sitka Assembly to buy out SCH, for me, and obviously for a number of other Sitkans, as reflected by letters to the editor, testimony at Assembly meetings and the petition to get the decision out to a public vote.
1) Management: Over the past several years there has been an exodus of SEARHC health care providers. Is it management, an uncomfortable work environment or something else? Are there other issues of import that the public and Assembly might not be aware of that would have a negative impact on all of us, should we end up under SEARHC management?
2) Scheduling: SEARHC beneficiaries are known to have difficulty scheduling timely appointments with their chosen primary care providers. Most people want to see the same providers every visit, but popular providers quickly get booked up, and are less available for any of their clients. SEARHC doctors are serving patients in outlying communities too, thus are taken away from local care to attend to those patients. How will SEARHC manage the influx of thousands of people needing urgent or regular appointments for ongoing health care services? How many SCH employees will leave town rather than work for SEARHC, so counting on those employees in the transition to solve scheduling issues is not a sure thing.
3) Communication: It is not unusual for no one to answer the phone in various departments at SEARHC, or for those that do, to be unsure of where to direct the caller. Adding new clientele will not improve this communication issue, with thousands of more callers needing assistance with routine or urgent needs. Being placed on hold and transferred multiple times, only to get a voice mail, simply doesn’t work for most of us in our busy lives, either. It appears that SEARHC would have difficulty serving more people.
4) Different missions: The missions of SEARHC and SCH are different. As an Indian Health Service facility, SEARHC is tasked with providing quality health care to IHS eligible beneficiaries. SEARHC should not be allowed to dilute their federally funded edict of serving IHS clients by serving those who do not qualify for IHS care (non-beneficiaries). SCH is focused on serving the needs of the general public of Sitka. SCH should not have to be duking it out with SEARHC, to gain the health insurance benefits of locals who are not eligible for federally funded IHS medical care.
Of course, scheduling and communication difficulties can happen at SCH too, but SCH isn’t trying to take over SEARHC and add thousands more clients to their workload. At what point in time did it become legal, or, IS it legal, for a federally funded IHS provider to openly compete for non-IHS clients? This is a BIG deal! It doesn’t seem right for SEARHC to be carrying on an advertising war to get SCH clients. What a waste of our hard earned federal and city tax dollars! SEARHC management ought to focus on caring for IHS beneficiaries, not trying to lure non-beneficiaries into their fold to procure those individual’s health care insurance benefits. I respect and care for my previous co-workers, friends and health care providers at SEARHC, where I provided social work services for 13 years. I raise these questions because our community stands to lose so much more than meets the eye, if this hospital merger were to take place. SEARHC beneficiaries will lose access to, and a level of, services due to the influx of patients from SCH. Harry Race and White’s pharmacies, and their employees will be left in the lurch. Some citizens will not switch to SEARHC if there is a takeover, but will look to Juneau, Anchorage or Seattle for routine health care needs in the future, removing lucrative health care dollars from Sitka’s economy to another Alaskan community or the lower 48. Who knows what will happen to all of the citizens that serve SCH, directly and indirectly, counting on this entity to survive for their livelihood. The housing market, schools, construction and maintenance workers, parts suppliers, food service workers and suppliers, grocers, landlords, our population and more will all be negatively impacted. Is this what we want for Sitka? Please, Sitka Assembly, do not take the irreversible step of giving up our community hospital! Instead, support the Hospital Board in hiring a new CEO (a qualified local person, preferably) and allow that new management time without threat of closure or takeover, to serve our community’s health care needs.
P.S.: SEARHC beneficiaries ought to recuse themselves due to the appearance of conflict of interest. Matt Hunter’s father works for SEARHC, so, with all due respect to both, Matt ought to recuse himself due to conflict of interest. Bob Potrzuski has been a driving force on the Assembly to get rid of SCH. It is amazing that he feels comfortable participating in an Assembly vote on such a critical issue, denying citizens a vote on what will impact us in countless ways, while he is preparing to move from Sitka! It seems Bob ought to recuse himself, as he will not have to live with the impact of this important decision. The remaining Assembly members are not enough for a quorum, so please let’s stick with the status quo for SCH!
Klaudia Leccese, Sitka
