UW isn’t serving needs of community | Letter

Published 1:30 am Monday, March 5, 2018

I have the exact problem that Coleen O’Brien outlined in her letter published on cmg-northwest2.go-vip.net/islandssounder on Feb. 27.

The University of Washington Medical Clinic on Orcas has notified me that even though I have been a patient at that facility for a number of years, they will no longer do blood draws and run lab work for physicians outside the UW system. I have an oncologist at Swedish who has seen me through a lot, including a stem cell transplant. They are not part of the UW system but can access their Ecare charting system. The Orcas UW Medical Clinic notified me that I need to use only UW providers for my medical needs if I want to have my blood work done on island. This is more akin to an ultimatum to me, and to us as a community, than an indication that UW desires to work with our community to provide our health care needs.

Gregory Kramer

Orcas Island