Whatcom Deserves a Public Hospital

We are worth it. Whatcom County residents deserve a hospital or a network of clinics that works more closely in tune with the people. It may be a long term project but we can build momentum.

Rome wasn't built in a day. If you plan for Whatcom's future, plan for a public hospital.

Any implementation of a public hospital or network of clinics must be wide open for discussion and analysis. It would be a subject of democratic processes. It would be ours.

We don't have a public hospital?

Except for the Point Roberts Public Hospital District we do not. We primarily have PeaceHealth which is described as a private and religious institution.

What kind of hospital do you mean?

More specifically a Public Hospital District. This could take many forms in practice. To the website author it just makes sense to call the district a hospital for conversation and this website.

An article "What do you know about Public Hospital Districts?" by the Salish Current explains more.

Who else has advocated for a Public Hospital in Whatcom County?

The Whatcom Democrats 2024/2025 include it as one item in their platform: "Support creation of a Public Hospital District to fund a public hospital and increase healthcare options in Whatcom County, which currently has only one hospital."

Whatcom DSA passed a resolution supporting the creation of a public hospital district Oct 10 2024

Whatcom DSA has also advocated for a public hospital in the past in 2020

Featured Article: Read Our First Meeting Notes

Better Off Public: Quality of Care

PeaceHealth comes at a cost. PeaceHealth has made cuts to services and made a push for providers to see more patients¹.

Additionally, PeaceHealth billed thousands of low-income patients without notifying them that they were likely eligible for financial assistance with their hospital bills².

A public hospital could be more responsive and would be much more connected to community. As Whatcom grows we should be prepared for a public future: a Hospital or a network of Clinics.

References

¹Cascadia Daily News: Frustration with PeaceHealth has become a political issue - October 2, 2023

²AG Ferguson: PeaceHealth will return up to $13.4 million to patients who should have received financial assistance

Better Off Public: Freedom of Religion in Healthcare

Promote freedom of expression and protections for more diversity within healthcare by providing a public hospital or network of clinics as an option. This includes for those of different faiths, denominations and secular people alike than just currently promoted by Saint Josephs Hospital as the only one in the county.

Join us (and our mailing list)!

Some day organically this website could become in support of a policy or proposal. For right now it is just a website about our support for a public hospital in Whatcom County in the long term. We will aim to post updates via our newsletter!

Learn more background

A post sponsored by PeaceHealth about the history of hospitals in the area.

A video about Public Hospital Districts by the Association of WA Public Hospital Districts.

A video titled #Gov101: Public Hospital Districts by the Washington State Auditor’s Office.

An article "What do you know about Public Hospital Districts?" by the Salish Current

Contact with your thoughts on a Public Hospital in Whatcom County

The preferred means of communication about this website are through Email Newsletter (Substack), Email or through Facebook.

Accessibility Statement

Accessibility Statement for Whatcom Public Hospital

This is an accessibility statement from WhatcomPublicHospital.org.

Measures to support accessibility

WhatcomPublicHospital.org volunteers take the following measures to ensure accessibility of the website WhatcomPublicHospital.org:

Include accessibility as part of our mission statement.
Assign clear accessibility goals and responsibilities.

Conformance status

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) defines requirements for designers and developers to improve accessibility for people with disabilities. It defines three levels of conformance: Level A, Level AA, and Level AAA. Whatcom Public Hospital is assessed with WCAG 2.1 level AA. It has been assessed to conformance which means that the content has been evaluated as having no programmatic issues.

Feedback

We welcome your feedback on the accessibility of Whatcom Public Hospital. Please let us know if you encounter accessibility barriers on Whatcom Public Hospital:

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We try to respond to feedback within 2 business days.

Date

This statement was created on 27 June 2024 using the W3C Accessibility Statement Generator Tool.