After an anonymous $25,000 donation, a fundraiser and months of gathering community contributions, officials with the Olympic Medical Center Foundation have collected the $50,000 required to reline the center’s hydrotherapy pool.
“We’re obviously very happy we were able to do it,” Bruce Skinner, executive director of the OMC Foundation, said. “These are the types of projects we like to do.”
The “Hog Wild” fundraiser sponsored by Sequim Health and Rehabilitation at Barhop Brewery mid-August brought in $14,000 and within the past few months community members have donated the additional $11,000 needed to keep OMC’s hydrotherapy service alive.
“I was surprised in a good way about how the (OMC) board responded,” Cecilia Kellogg-Kilmer said. “It just tells me again when people have a desire for something, ask for help and seek resources, people and the community step up to the challenge.”
Kellogg-Kilmer is a Sequim resident and hydrotherapy patient at the Olympic Medical Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation clinic for spinal detrition from an inoperable form of arthritis. Kellogg-Kilmer was one of multiple concerned and outspoken individuals regarding the pool’s possible closure during July’s OMC board of commissioners meeting.
If OMC’s pool closed, Kellogg-Kilmer, along with 42 other patients, would have had to travel to Kitsap County to utilize an equivalent hydrotherapy pool.
“OMC really appreciates the opportunity to keep the pool going,” Scott Kennedy, MD, and chief medical officer at OMC, said.
In July, OMC officials had planned to close the pool in September because of the pricey liner and overall expense associated with maintaining the specialized service. However, in response to the community reaction to the potential closure, OMC officials turned their attention toward keeping the pool open.
Although the hydrotherapy pool is a mere 14 feet by 10 feet, improvements like the new liner are so expensive because of the pool’s unique features, such as the underwater treadmill and an adjustable floor.
Additionally, with more than 80 percent of the center’s patients on Medicare, Medicaid or other government insurance policies, the center is tasked with balancing the cost and variety of its services with lower governmental reimbursement rates, Eric Lewis, OMC chief executive officer told Gazette staff in July.
“We don’t need to make any money (from the hydrotherapy pool service), but historically we’re losing about $6,000 per month,” Lewis said.
OMC officials are still
“early in the process” of reorganizing their approach to the pool to ensure its future, Kennedy said, but already have shifted the staffing within the physical therapy department and are considering expanding the pool’s classes to include pre- and postnatal patients for example.
To reduce costs, OMC officials have “kept the same leadership, but have increased the involvement of the physical therapy assistants,” Kennedy said.
Both OMC’s administration and board were “overwhelmed” with the community support, he said, and will thus continue to think of innovative ways to make the pool “economically viable.”
Reach Alana Linderoth at alinderoth@sequimgazette.com.
