by Vincent Shu, MD
Orcas Island
We cannot tell you how much we appreciated Orcas Island Health Care District’s commissioners’ tireless efforts to reshaping our island’s healthcare model in a cost-effective way. This need to look for other viable options is driven by the fact that the present healthcare model is not financially sustainable.
After numerous hours spent at the district’s board meetings and the special meetings with the OIHCD hired consultants, it is clear that we now have enormous amounts of information which while informative is sometimes also confusing, perhaps even misleading. And as of today (about 22 months since the inception of OIHCD), this complicated issue remains unresolved and undecided similar to driving on a roundabout without exiting.
Due to the aforementioned issues, a call for the Community Advisory Group reflecting a voice of the community is needed.
This public forum meeting is meant to pick and spur the intelligent islanders’ brains to come forth with creative ideas and alternative models for OIHCD’s consideration. They need not be extremely complicated but can be common sense ideas that we all have intuitively.
Our tax-paying community’s voice deserves to be heard by OIHCD. This voice stemming from the community provides a unique strength reflecting the wills of our taxpayers which may not be the best interests of a large corporate clinic. It is the community’s desire for an ideal healthcare not in the interest of a large corporate clinic but of sustainable value to the community.
It is our pleasure to invite each of you to the meeting with this focus: Is an OIHCD owned healthcare clinic workable and achievable? Please join us for one of the public forum meetings at the library from 5-7 p.m. on March 5, 7, 12 and 14.
I want to express my sincere gratitude in advance for those who can attend one of these meetings to offer valuable input, thought and support because they’re concerned and actively engaged in their healthcare, which we all hope to sustain for many years and generations to come.
