Editor,
What is it about Whidbey General Hospital that seems to garner so much bad press? Can it be the outrageous pricing structure for medical procedures performed there? Perhaps. I just checked today (yet again) to compare pricing for seven common procedures and surprise, surprise, Whidbey General comes out one and a half to almost nine times as expensive as Everett or Seattle or even the national average. Heaven forbid I would quote any price comparisons here (they might not be accurate after all) but I assure you it is very easy to look up on the internet and verify. Step right up folks. Pick a procedure, any procedure and be amazed at how expensive healthcare is on our lovely island. Sort of like the gasoline around here. How silly of me to think that folks were being snide when they say, “Unless you’re dying, get on the ferry if you need to get to a hospital.”
What, you’ve heard that one before? Hardly surprising. Or maybe it’s something just as systemic, that being the ongoing Tomasino/Fulton/Gipson fiasco that is reported in this paper. Seems like there’s enough incompetence, subterfuge, and drama to fuel a soap opera. But this is real and there’s nothing in the least entertaining about it. About this time last year, a very good friend of mine was admitted to Whidbey General, strapped to a bed, given inappropriate medications and mistreated to the point of great alarm to her partner and close friends. It took a special meeting involving a court order from a judge to get her out of there and into a Seattle hospital where she quickly improved after appropriate and competent treatment. This is not hearsay. I was there. The proceedings were recorded. I wonder, after reading of this clearly similar situation in The Record, just how much of a problem this is.
It’s wonderful that we have a facility like Whidbey General available to us here on Whidbey Island. It’s terrible that it seems to be rife with incompetence and mismanagement. If only it could be taken over by a medical organization or facility that knows how to run things right.
ROBERT JOBE
Freeland
