Valley Medical Center is the canary in the coalmine
Walking through the halls of Valley Medical Center in the recent months, there is a tense quiet that is thick and oppressive. Since March, due to anticipated federal and state funding shifts, Valley leadership has made swift cuts to multiple positions. The cuts started with 101 layoffs in administration in the span of less than 24 hours and the impacts rippled outward all the way to direct patient care when most recently at least 60 clinical providers (doctors, advanced practice nurses, etc.) were given their notice. As an employee it is hard to avoid thinking about who’s going to be next on the chopping block. The mission “caring for our community like family” echoes through the quiet and empty halls, like an empty promise. This is not how I was taught to treat family, and certainly not how I was taught to care for my patients as a doctor.
I was drawn to working in Renton for mission driven work, which also means that the population we work with is both diverse and vulnerable, with 9% Black, 25.8% Asian. Valley is the oldest and largest public hospital district system in Washington State, founded in 1947, with 341 beds serving more than 600,000 residents in Southeast King County (including Kent, Renton, Tukwila, Auburn and beyond). In the last months, it feels like that mission has been betrayed. Valley made cuts due to anticipated loss of federal funding, citing risk of shuttering its doors otherwise.
Public district hospitals are governmental entities that are vital to the state healthcare system. Like all hospitals, Valley receives revenue through private and public insurance, including Medicaid and Medicare. Due to being a public hospital, a disproportionate share of funding comes from federal and state sources, putting Valley at greater risk more quickly. Currently, Valley has a year-to-date operating loss of -$25 million and growing. Should Valley close, it will not be saved by the state, as from the state’s point of view they have alternate access to hospitals like UW Montlake and Harborview. Despite the MD behind my name, I feel powerless to stop it. A patient’s son recently shared with me, “(my mom) feels safe here. She proudly displayed her Valley gold member sticker on her car before I had to take away her keys (due to worsening dementia).” But in the last months, I started to wonder, does leadership share my patient’s sense of pride?
In an attempt to control costs, Valley has also downgraded their birth center and NICU to level 2, which means premature babies born prior to 32 weeks and mothers with high risk deliveries will need to go elsewhere. Why is it that the most vulnerable, mothers and children often bear the brunt of these cost saving measures? Further, the reasons why these cuts are affecting Washington, and particularly Valley the most, remain unclear. A Republican-backed budget bill was passed by the U.S. House and Senate via slim margins and unfortunately signed into law on July 4, with at least 250,000 Washingtonians standing to lose coverage as a result. Everyday families will continue to suffer, especially in rural areas, and what Valley is experiencing is just the tip of the iceberg, with a hiring freeze, closure of primary care, urgent care, and occupational health services, pediatric inpatient medicine, and maternal fetal medicine. Hospitals similar to Valley will soon experience similar closures and patients will be bottlenecked to the few places that remain. Nursing homes will close, continue the onslaught on our most vulnerable.
When patients on Medicaid lose, all Washingtonians lose. The care of our most vulnerable is the thermometer for the care for all. Political science was unfortunately not a part of medical education, and now more than ever I’m realizing the need to do more. Recently, a patient said to me “even with everything that is going on at Valley, the staff is incredible. I’m blown away by the compassion of the team here.” It is more important than ever to keep or representatives accountable and step up as citizens to keep our pulse on the violation of our patients’ rights to quality medical care, regardless of background. As I never seek to take away my patient’s hope, I have to believe that Valley is a system that is not past saving. I just hope we are not too late.
Tiffany Chen, Renton resident
