Vote ‘yes’ to Prop. 1
Please vote to approve the revised Prop. 1 for EvergreenHealth to provide much-needed upgrades to your 50-year-old community hospital. Your vote matters, needing only a few hundred more votes than the April ballot measure. Passage will assure that the quality care provided to you and your family will be available for another 50 years.
Key areas of the bond issue are: Seismic upgrades to assure the hospital will meet FEMA standards and survive a 9.0 earthquake; an advanced ICU to replace the one built 35 years ago; a modernized FMC for the Eastside’s most-preferred birthing center and America’s first “baby-friendly hospital;” technology and facility upgrades, especially in outpatient care and mental health.
EvergreenHealth was created by voters from Kenmore to Sammamish in 1968. They formed KCPHD #2 and approved bonds to build a new 76-bed hospital that opened in 1972, replacing the old Kirkland Hospital downtown. I joined the ER staff in 1973 and have spent my entire career there.
EvergreenHealth now has more than 300 beds, is ranked among the “Top 100 Hospitals in America” by Healthgrades, and provides unique services such as free patient parking, a geriatrics clinic, a free 24/7 nurse consulting hot line, palliative care, Evergreen Hospice and Home Care, a five-star stroke center, youth mental health, etc.
Voters elect the board that runs EvergreenHealth. It meets four times a month, including with a group of more than 40 community advisors, while most hospital boards are appointed and meet less than once a month.
Your hospital district tax rate will not increase (currently about $11 a month for a $700,000 home). That’s about half the cost of your library tax. The bond term will extend out a few more years.
Please vote to approve Prop. 1.
Chuck Pilcher
Kirkland
The Gem of EvergreenHealth’s Prop. 1
When voting on EvergreenHealth’s Prop. 1 measure, you may not be aware of a hidden gem in this bond. Our elected officials (commissioners) decided to build an outpatient mental health clinic if we pass the bond!
The need is definitely there. According to the National Institute of Mental Health:
One in 25 have a serious mental health illness like bipolar, eating disorders, major depression and severe anxiety.
Only 41 percent of adults in the United States with a mental health condition received mental health services in the past year.
Among adults with a serious mental illness, 62.9 percent received mental health services in the past year.
Just over half (50.6 percent) of children with a mental health condition aged 8-15 received mental health services in the previous year.
Suicide is now the No. 2 killer of our teens.
So please know Prop. 1 is more than seismically retrofitting EvergreenHealth’s oldest buildings and upgrading the 1985 Critical Care Unit. It’s about “the forgotten people” — our mentally challenged residents and their families crying for care.
Please vote “Yes” on Prop. 1.
Bob Yoder
Redmond
