San Juan Hospital District Updates

New Grant, Response Committee, COVID-19 Restrictions, Volunteer Resignations

By San Juan County Public Hospital District 1

The San Juan Community Based Long Term Care Network was recently awarded a one-year $100,000 grant from the Federal Health Resources and Services Rural Network Planning Grant Program in October of 2020.

The district was passed over for this in the first round of approvals, apparently due to funding limitations, so we are very happy to have received this grant.

San Juan County Public Hospital District No. 1 would like to thank our partners: the Inter Island Healthcare Foundation, PeaceHealth and San Juan County Public Hospital District No. 2 (Lopez Island Hospital District).

This grant is separate and distinct from the HRSA Care Coordination Grant awarded in August 2020, though there are real synergies and opportunities for collaboration between the grants.

HRSA is a federal agency that focuses on improving access to health care services for people who are uninsured, isolated, or medically vulnerable. The specific purpose of HRSA’s Rural Network Planning Grant is to promote the development of integrated health care networks to increase efficiency and improve the quality of basic health care services in rural healthcare systems.

The district is also working on bringing together all response organizations operating on the island to form a joint response committee to benefit our residents and visitors.

Due to the continuation of COVID 19 restrictions, classroom training for American Heart Association remains on hold. We are currently instructing people to go online at elearning.heart.org for training. Once the course is completed, print out the completion certificate, then contact Lainey Volk at San Juan Island EMS at 360-378-5152.

The district would like to remind you about our child safety seat and bicycle helmet programs that are available by appointment. Contact Lainey Volk for that as well.

San Juan Island EMS recently had 12 EMT’s resign. The commissioners of the community relations committee spent many hours working with them to resolve their concerns. SJIEMS was disappointed they felt they had to resign but thank them for volunteering with the organization and wish them the best in their future endeavors continuing to serve our community.

The majority of them were cross-trained fire/EMS EMT’s. We will miss them at the agency but will continue to work with them on calls with the fire district. SJIEMS will continue to provide excellent prehospital emergency care and the priority of SJIEMS and the district is the healthcare of our community.

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