Trish Lehman for the Hospital District Levy

I am writing in response to the article written by Rebecca Smith and Michael Edwards, who are encouraging the public to vote no for our hospital district levy.

This levy plans to purchase our local Assisted Living facility, Village at the Harbor, increase wages and benefit the staff, add beds dedicated to Medicaid recipients and create a home care agency to support aging in place, as we are in the midst of an eldercare crisis.

As an RN I have spent 40 years living and working in our community in the areas of long term care, home health and hospice. I bring this experience of long term care to my role as a current hospital district commissioner for San Juan Island.

Michael and Rebecca stated that Assisted Living facilities have “a model of elderly care with a track record of financial failure” which is NOT true. It is the reason we are NOT entering into the business of running a skilled nursing facility or SNF. They mentioned in their letter that we should subsidize the Village at the Harbor, and we did offer this option, however, this offer was declined.

It’s important to understand that the Village at the Harbor operates in a completely different manner and model than a Skilled Nursing Facility (Life Care Center of the San Juans). This is the setting I worked in for 20+ years, as a former Director of Nursing and in nursing administration at two other SNF’s here in Washington State.

Rebecca and Michael mentioned the two federal grants addressing rural elder care, which although valuable in gathering information about our elders and our community resources, are not providing direct care to our community. What did become clear after the first year of the planning grant was that each island in our county must create their own hands on eldercare system.

I’m proud to say this PHD board of commissioners is devoted to being a part of this solution sooner than later, not years from now. We are in the midst of a serious and worsening elder care crisis and we simply can’t afford to wait!

On our website https://sjcphd.org/ltc, scroll to the bottom under “documents” for our detailed 6 year budget for this project.

We must be a part of the solution right now and I would ask that you each strongly consider voting YES for this Hospital District Levy to help make a difference for the elders in our community.

Trish Lehman RN
Commissioner, San Juan Hospital District #1