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Centennial Year - 1905-2005 January 19, 2012 • Volume 107, No. 03
The official paper of Oroville, Tonasket & Okanogan County, Washington
Hospital Board approves equipment purchases By Brent Baker Staff Writer TONASKET - Equipment purchases dominated the agenda at the Thursday, Jan. 12, meeting of the North Valley Hospital District’s Board of Commissioners meeting. The best news from a financial perspective came during discussion of the purchase of 12 surplus beds and six exam tables. With an original acquisition cost of over $160,000, support services director John Boyd at first requested $16,000 for the surplus items, but had been informed that day that the cost would only be $1,650. “These are items that come from state surplus,” Boyd said. “When they notify us (that equipment is available), if I don’t say we want them right away, they’ll be gone. “Normally when we buy surplus we calculate 10 cents on the dollar, and I calculated $16,000. But they only charged $1,650 for all the equipment. We talked on the phone … it wasn’t (a mistake).” The board approved the purchase of an automated microbiology system for the lab that will cut turnaround time for identifying organisms and determining correct antibiotic treatment nearly in half, from about 55 hours to 32
hours, according to lab manager Noreen Olma. The agreement will be for a 60-month lease of $49,875 with a one dollar buyout at the end of the term. The board also approved the purchase of a Kodak document scanner for the HIM department. The cost approved was not to exceed $13,941, but the model selected was estimated to cost about $4,000 less. Also approved were the purchase of an internet system for wireless access within the hospital and long-term care facility for $7358.92; completion of offsite computer system backup for disaster recovery for $7036.20; and flooring for the remodeled second floor of the hospital from Tonasket Interiors for $14,487.81. In addition, the board approved the active reappointment of Heather Stortz, D.O. (Family/OB at North Valley Family Medicine); the courtesy reappointments of Joshua G. Schkrohowsky, M.D., and Teri G. Mitschelen, RNFA (both of Caribou Trail Orthopedics); and courtesy reappointments of Jacqueline Chambers, NP / Midwifery (Family Health Center) and Pedro T. Vieco, M.D. (Radiologist, Radia, Inc.). The hospital district’s board of commissioners next meets Thursday, Jan. 26, at 7 p.m. in the NVH board room.
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Just in time for snow
Photos by Charlene Helm & Brent Baker
Natalie Rodriguez and Isaac Bensing were winners of snow sleds in this year’s Letters to Santa Contest held annually by the Gazette-Tribune. Rodriguez received her sled from Prince’s Ace Hardware in Oroville and it was presented by store owner Jack Hughes. Bensing received his from Lee Frank Mercantile in Tonasket and was presented by store manager Stacey Kester. Each year a letter from a Tonasket and Oroville area child are randomly drawn at the G-T office. Both stores generously donate sleds to the lucky winners, something they’ve been doing for more than a decade. Nine-year-old Rodriguez lives on Buckhorn Mountain and said she likes her sled a lot and is excited to be one of the winners, adding that she has never had a sled like it before and is lucky she has snow where she lives.
NVH, other Critical Access Hospitals Parking issue stays on Tonasket council radar face budget axe By Brent Baker Staff Writer
By Brent Baker Staff Writer TONASKET - Proposed cuts to state Medicare and Medicaid funding have North Valley Hospital District officials concerned about the future of health care in the region, the future of the hospital and the potential economic impact if enacted. Officials from Critical Access Hospitals around the state, as well as legislators from the rural, low-income areas that most CAHs serve, are doing their best to make their voices heard before cuts are enacted that could gut rural health care facilities statewide. NVH administrator Linda Michel recently wrote a letter to Governor Christine Gregoire outlining the potential impact of the proposed cuts. “We provide much needed services to our community, and we work hard to provide both quality care and great customer service to our patients, visitors, providers and each other,” Michel wrote. “Our elderly population benefits the most, because often times they are unable to travel to a larger city, or must be separated from their spouse because he/she cannot drive such a distance. Rural healthcare also has lower care costs than the big city facilities, yet provides the same standard of care... “Rural medicine is vitally important in our state, not only for healthcare, but for employment. In a time when employment is hard to find, we employ 200-plus in our CAH. Should the cuts be so deep that we cannot survive; our town will also not survive.” The hospital district is Tonasket’s largest employer; the Tonasket School District, fighting a budget battle of its own with the state, is the second-largest. Hospital CFO Bomi Bharucha said the district receives 65-70 percent of its income from Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements. Medicare accounts for about two-
TONASKET - Night time parking within the Tonasket city limits continued to be an issue for the Tonasket City Council as it heard feedback on recent efforts to enforce a parking ordinance that in some parts of town is extremely difficult to abide by. The ordinance forbids parking on city streets from 2-6 a.m. and is particularly critical when it comes to snow removal during the winter and street sweeping during the dry months. At issue is what do about vehicles parked on South Tonasket Ave., where a number of homes do not have driveways, an apartment dwelling has more units than parking spots and many of the residents are renters that only now are becoming aware of the ordinance. Adding to the confusion is the “gentleman’s agreement” that has allowed residents to park on one side of the street, then move their cars to the other side after it snows to allow the plows to remove snow over a two-night period. Being a gentleman’s agreement, of course, causes its own set of problems as it’s not written into law. “There’s been that gentleman’s agreement,” said Mayor Patrick Plumb. “It’s not in writing anywhere. It’s just an agreement with Bill (Pilkinton) and his (snowplow) crew, or the cops, or something like that, to keep the streets clean.” Jollie Evans, one of the few homeowners along that stretch, was in attendance to express the ongoing neighborhood concerns. “People are coming and going all the time,” she said. “So they don’t know... and even if we were to park on one side of the street all the time, there’s way more cars than spots.” Councilmember Scott Olson said that it had been his understanding that the homeowners were going to present a written proposal to the council to give them a starting point in revising the ordinance into something See HOSPITAL on Page 3 that would be workable as writ-
thirds of that amount. House Bill 2130 would eliminate cost-based Medicaid reimbursement to all of the state’s Critical Access Hospitals, which accounts for about half of all Medicaid funding received by the hospitals. It would be a huge cut in an area where there is little cushion. “Cost-based’ doesn’t mean it covers all costs,” Bharucha said. “Many costs are excluded, such as professional fees to physicians, because we bill separately for those. It is the hospital technical side it covers. “The problem in rural areas, with low volumes (of patients) and very low reimbursement rates for professional fees, many CAH hospitals lose a lot of money on professional fees. And the very definition of cost-based means that the best you’ll do is to break even. ‘I’m just going to pay your costs, there’s no profit there.’ “So if they take away the costbased program it is a big chunk for a facility like ours. That is the big one to watch for.” Michel wasn’t the only one writing letters. In December, shortly after the governor’s budget cut proposal was released, more than 30 legislators representing rural Washington districts -- including District 7 representatives Joel Kretz and Shelly Short -- signed a letter to the governor outlining the potential impact of her proposal. In it, they point out that the cuts in state funding would be matched 1:1 by cuts in federal dollars, and likely result in further cuts to programs and services supported through Medicaid managed care. “While the proposal represents only 3 percent of the state’s Medicaid budget,” the letter reads, “it represents a 48 percent reduction in Medicaid payments to Critical Access Hospitals. It’s difficult to identify another service that
ten. “(As written) there is no parking on ANY street between two and six in the morning,” he said. “That’s why we’re asking you to come to us. Our solution is for you to come to us as a neighborhood with a workable solution, and we can go from there. Until that point we’re going to encourage the police officers to enforce it when there’s going to be snow so the public works department can clear the streets.” Police chief Robert Burks said that at this point the department is not ready to write tickets along Tonasket Ave. for that particular issue. “Just because Bill comes out when it snows you’re not going to get a ticket,” he said. “He’ll give us a list (of cars that are parked on the street) and we’ll contact them and ask if you could move to the other side. If you don’t have anywhere to go we can come up for some place for you to park so Bill can come out and plow where those people were. “It’s the same old thing, and it’s the reason why we’re going over all the ordinances.” “We realize there’s a situation where people don’t have options,” said Councilmember Jill Vugteveen. “Bill and Rob are willing to work with the neighborhood to do what we need to do.” “Until (the council) comes up with a solution,” Pilkinton said, “everyone should park on the west side of the street. Then if we get a heavy snow they can move to the east side (for the second round of plowing.)” “We’ll be addressing this,” Plumb said, emphasizing that the discussion only pertained to S. Tonasket Ave., and not other areas in town. “For now I hope we can have peace for two weeks.” Of course, parking was far from the only topic of the threehour meeting. During public comment, Brandi Clark brought to the board’s attention that some ordinances governing animals don’t address actual issues that are occurring in town. Clark’s 15-year-old son had recently been attacked by a
large dog that dragged its doghouse into the street to come after him, but because his injuries did not involve his skin being broken, they didn’t fit under the city’s definition of “severe.” “The city codes say it was not ‘severe,’” Clark said. “The definition states you would have to have broken bones, sutures, or reconstructive surgery ... my sons injuries, if a human had done that to my son, he would be in jail. I would just like the ordinance adjusted to redefine ‘severe’... it concerns me because that is a walking route for a lot of younger children. It could have been very, very severe. I’m happy that everything was handled as written; I just wish it had been written differently.” Police Chief Robert Burks talked of the frustration of dealing with animal issues under the current code. “What’s frustrating for us -- a dog at large is an infraction and we can’t write that unless we actually see the dog. Now we’ve got a dog bites a kid, and all you can get is a piece of paper that warns you what will happen if it happens again. I’m wondering if there is some kind of legal way to come up with a fine, if you get a potentially dangerous dog notice, you also get a fine... like a $500 ticket would make you keep track of your dog or get rid of your dog.” Plumb said that resolving issues with the code would probably be most appropriately handled by the public safety committee, which has already started the process of reviewing all of the city code. “If we hash this out here we’ll end up banning all dogs from town or saying there are no rules,” Plumb said. “We need to address fixing it; I’ve had issues with this code myself ... we haven’t gotten to (this part of the code yet), but when we get there I’d like you to be here for any of these discussions, because I appreciate you (Clark) being here and going what you’re doing... “Law enforcement is asking for some clarity, and they need
it for when they go out in public and explain this. It’s a lot of wordage for a dog.” Also as part of public comment, Roger Rylander reiterated a long-held desire to have an emergency truck escape ramp put in on Highway 20 heading into town, but felt that someone other than he needed to spearhead the project due to a conflict of interest on his part. “Thirty years ago we had a couple of trucks roll through town out of control,” he said. “The DOT thinks the brakecheck pull out is sufficient. I’m just trying to avoid a tragedy.” Plumb noted that such a project would be complex, seeing as it was outside of the city limits and would involve the purchase of private property. “What we should do is invite the DOT up for a town hall meeting and general discussion of Highway 20 safety,” he said. “That could include the (Highway 20/97) interchange. I don’t know of any other interchange that looks like that.” On a more upbeat note, the council heard a report from Tonasket Visitor and Business Resource Center volunteer coordinator Linda Black, who last month received a proclamation from the council for her work. “Last year (2010) we had about 500 visitors; this year we had more than 1,100,” she said. “It’s surprising how many tourists we’ve had coming through. We’ve been discovered.” Looking ahead to 2012, Black said she planned on expanding the calendar of art shows from four to seven, starting with a quilting display in April and ending with a taxidermy exhibition in October. There will be a monthly open house featuring a meet-and-greet with the artists on display that month. Other projects, such as the Halloween haunted house, the tent campground, art walk, and the pots and perennials project, will be back as well. “We plan on doing the same projects next year,” Black said. “We just want to work on doing See COUNCIL on Page 3
INDEX
Okanogan Valley Life/Columnists .................................5
Sports.........................................................................8-9
Community ................................................................2-3
Obits..............................................................................6
Outdoors.........................................................................9
Letters & Opinions .......................................................4
Classifieds/Legals.........................................................7-8
Police Stats...................................................................10