A new hospital for Chelan?

WHY:

I have been a physician in Chelan for 30 years and have cared for patients in the Lake Chelan Hospital almost every day of those 30 years and I can tell you that we now have a dedicated, well trained and hard working staff struggling to provide the best care they can in a small, old and inadequate building. The wiring is too old to power the next generation of computers, lab and x-ray equipment. The pipes, embedded in the concrete slab and walls, are rusty and frequently break. The building is just too small. People share closets for office space and equipment is stored in the halls. There is no room to add new medical technology as it becomes available or add new or expanded services. The double patient rooms are small and present problems when matching male with male or female with female patients or accommodating patients with infectious diseases. The small number of ER rooms sometimes results in long waits to get service and there are times in the winter when cars, including ambulances cannot get up the hill to the hospital.

WHY NOW:

No, the hospital is not about to fall down but doing nothing is not an option. The building does not meet state code in many, many areas. Until now the state has grandfathered in these deficiencies but no more. Recently the state notified the hospital that it would have to update the old emergency power system to keep its doors open. The estimated cost for updating this single system is more than $2 million or about 10% of the hospitals’ share of a completely new building. And this is likely to be only the first of many expensive fixes that will be required to patch up our old hospital building. Clearly the hospital commissioners were prudent not to go down that road of unknown expenses which, in the end, would still leave us with a small, old and inadequate building. Expanding the hospital or building new on the existing site was also considered but the estimated cost of excavating and blasting into the rocky hillside was unbelievably prohibitive. Every consultant and reasonable person that looks at these numbers agrees; it is cheaper to build a new hospital than put money into a fixer upper building or build on a hill side.

WHY NOT:

Passage of this bond will mean higher property tax. Nobody, including me, wants to pay more tax but we do so for the good of our children with better school and for the benefit of us all for police and fire protection. Over the 30 year term of this hospital bond the additional property tax would be, at maximum, only 38 cents / $1,000 of assessed value per year or $38.00 per year for a $100,000 house or $190.00 per year for a 1/2 million dollar house. This would be just a bit more than we already pay for our library and the amount of tax each property owner pays will decrease with time as more houses and business are added to our tax base.

And consider this; every year the hospital brings $26.7 million into our community from various federal and state programs and from private insurance companies. It employs 284 people and has a payroll of $16 million / year.

Please do not be fooled by the misleading and deceptive scare tactics of the “Vote No Campaign” The total cost, including interest over 30 years, of the $20 million bond we are asking you to approve is $32 million ($20 million for the bond +$12 million total interest over 30 years)

The “No” campaign also claims that the hospital cannot afford it’s’ $22 million share of the cost of the new hospital but multiple consultants and financial experts say we can. Because ours is a Critical Access Hospital the federal government guarantees us a 1% profit over expenses and the cost of repaying the loan would be a covered expense. The total cost of the loan, including interest would be $38 million not the $154 million “massive” debt you might have seen on the “no “campaign signs.

VOTE:

The opposition is relentless. They are organized, they are loud and they are wrong. Do not let them deny you the best medical care we can provide and do not let them force the hospital commissioners to waste your money trying to modernize an old building. Please vote. And for the health of your family, our community and our future, PLEASE VOTE YES.

Thank You,

C.J. Waszkewitz, MD

Chelan