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Hospital District hearing
County Commissioner’s Agenda, meeting Monday at 2 p.m. in Montesano:
HEARINGS:
1. Petition for Public Hospital District Formation – North Beach
PUBLIC COMMENT on County related items, limited to three minutes. At the podium please state your name and address. Questions are best answered by appointment. Requests of action by the Board should be submitted in writing to the Clerk of the Board for consideration of placement on any weekly agenda.
[See the full agenda at http://www.co.grays-harbor.wa.us/gh_minutes/index.asp]
The Commissioners meeting is:
Monday, 30 August at 2:00 P.M., Commissioners Meeting Room, 100 West Broadway, Suite #1, Montesano, WA 98563
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on Sunday, August 29th, 2010 at 5:28 pm and is filed under North Coast News.
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Less gas, less wear and tear on vehicles, less overtime, less employees needed to transport to a central North Beach point. No more 22 miles over secondary slippery roads in stormy winters. Shorter travel time to qualified medical help will save lives.
Costs can’t go away, but right now EMS costs to Ocean Shores taxpayers is doing nothing but growing and growing. The trend needs to reverse. A hospital district allows for profit and non-profit self supporting medical services. It can reverse the EMS trend. It can provide a platform for scores of new services. Details of successful hospital districts surrounding Ocean Shores exist.
There are never any measurable costs coming out of EMS for specific measurable benefits. If there ever were such metrics. A hospital district would have to do better following the same measurable input of dollars and measurable output of taxpayer benefit. The solution is not to pay more and more for EMS. Even though EMS attempts to save lives, the costs cannot go to infinity. Even taxpayers backs will break. EMS is only a growing pain interim solution.
Well gosh t.tib, what makes you think the cost of EMS will go away if you get a hospital district?
How about we try and figure out our own financial mess before we ruin another entity,and completely rule out ANY services ever coming in the future. I guess spend, baby spend seems to be the going way so why not.
Sarcasm aside, Ocean Shores alone is spending 1.8 million a year on EMS in a 5 million dollar fire house for 3 to 5 calls a day. This is not frugal.
We need solutions and no more excuses. This proposal should at least be given a fair hearing rather than just rejecting it out of hand. Ocean Shores no longer has the money to spend emotionally, all the while hoping problems get solved when they never get solved, only cost more money. There should be some value returned to all the taxpayers for all the money EMS spends. A hospital district could have at least a less costly EMS service.
Strange, Forks has 3900 people. We have 7200 in the North Beach. Stange, Florence has about 8200 people The Mark Reed Hospital District has about 10,000 people. So, we do have enough people. EMS is not an LVN/LPN, RN, PRN, PA, Doctor, Specialist Doctor. They are the basic transportation to these other medical providers. They do not have the equipment to diagnose beyond basic information. They do not offer any of the other services a Hospital District can provide. In fact, a Hospital District can provide EMS services. So, it may be a way of consolidating services and getting an economy of scale in the area. EMS is only one part of medical treatment. I don’t want and EMS person treating me for a brain tumor.
Oh goody, another taxing authority. Let’s build another empire and increase our property taxes some more. Don’t have the population to support it. That’s why we have EMS.
Hospital District is more than a Hospital
Hospital Districts are the way communities get medical care. There are a whole host of services a hospital district can deliver to the area they serve.
Services a Hospital District can offer:
Ambulance
Assisted Living
Behavioral Health Service
Clinics
Emergency Department
Fitness Center/Programs
Health Education/ Prevention Programs
Health Resource Center
Home Health
Hospice
Inpatient
Outpatient
Pharmacy
Skilled Nursing Facilities
Wellness Centers
The Hospital District can start providing some of these services as it moves forward in establishing the Critical Access Hospital facility. The Hospital District can work with existing facilities to bring rotational specialists and other services. A Hospital District is the mechanism needed to gain grants, loans, and other funding not available to private practitioners. A Hospital District is the vehicle needed to interest Hospital Corporations in establishing facilities within a community. A Hospital District shows both private and government entities that the citizens are interested in improving their quality of medical services.
Look at Elma, (Mark Reed) Forks, WA; Florence, OR; Friday Harbor, WA and many other communities that have similar and even smaller populations.
Now days there are hospital corporations that are willing to build the facility for the community in order to gain market share of the patients for their larger facilities. This is a method that keep the cost to the citizens in the hospital district minimal.
Also, this is for the whole North Beach. Ocean Shores is just a portion of the whole. Instead of trying to be the sole provider for the North Beach, we need to look to regional solutions. That way everyone pays for the services offered.
This same logic should have been applied to our library. Everyone uses it and only Ocean Shores pays for it. It is time to share the cost of services along with the benefits.
Also, as stated above, it can be a gradual development. The commissioners are local citizens. They are well aware of the economic situation and will work to provide a reasonable path to success. See the path at http://www.nbmore.com