Last week, in a Beachcomber commentary, Vashon Health Care District (VHCD) commissioners Eric Pryne and Wendy Noble, along with the VHCD superintendent, Tim Johnson, asked islanders to help define Vashon’s most pressing unmet healthcare needs.

The district is now re-imagining its role on Vashon, following Sea Mar Community Health Care’s decision to sever its relationship with the district and build its own health care clinic on Vashon — a turn of events that almost no one on the island could have imagined even a year ago, much less when the district was founded in 2019.

A few islanders will no doubt say this means VHCD should close up shop as a taxing district — but here at The Beachcomber, we strongly disagree.

Instead, we see VHCD’s current transition as a tremendous opportunity to meaningfully address the scarcity of many other healthcare options, unrelated to primary care, on our island.

The state law that governs public hospital districts — which is what VHCD is — states that such districts can provide any health care services “appropriate to the health needs of the population served.”

In their commentary, the VHCD commissioners and superintendent pointed out how some other hospital districts have chosen to address a wide range of needs by redistributing tax revenue to such things as wellness classes, physical therapy practices, and collaborative programs with other agencies including fire departments.

But what are Vashon’s most pressing priorities, in addition to primary care?

Let’s tick off a few obvious things.

Vashon has no urgent care facility — a place to go, after-hours, when you’ve had an accident or fall, or have a cut requiring stitches, or suddenly require diagnostic services including x-rays or lab tests, or experience a host of other unexpected health care issues.

Vashon also has few options for drug and alcohol treatment — and we have an alcoholism and addiction problem here that has repeatedly brought deep heartache to our small community.

Though it has been too long since The Beachcomber has done a deep dive into the rates of alcohol-related car accidents and fatalities on Vashon, we know the rate has been too high, for too long, for our small population.

And just last year, there was another tragedy: the hit-and-run vehicular homicide of Nathan Dorn, Jr., by an islander who had prior offenses for driving under the influence and had been caught on video stumbling as he walked toward his car, minutes before Dorn’s death.

We also know that national rates of alcohol and other substance abuse, drug overdoses and deaths have increased dramatically during the COVID era, and that Vashon — an isolated rural community, where homes are tucked away and out of sight — is likely a place that has experienced increased impacts of addiction as well.

Other programs addressing mental health, suicide prevention and domestic violence are also seriously underfunded on Vashon.

Still more pressing healthcare needs exist due to our island’s fast-growing senior population.

Could VHCD help in this arena? Would there be a way, for instance, for VHCD to help subsidize the work of a small but mighty Vashon organization, the Vashon Care Network, which works to provide caregiving resources for seniors to remain in their homes?

These are only some of the opportunities that now exist for VHCD.

The district’s commissioners have shown their responsiveness to the community throughout the period of time they negotiated Sea Mar’s departure from the clinic — insisting on many aspects of an agreement with Sea Mar which we believe will make the nonprofit more responsive to the specific needs of islanders.

Now, commissioners can turn their attention elsewhere, and we know they will do so with diligence, intelligence and community-mindedness.

The possibilities are exciting — but it will take community buy-in and brilliance to help re-imagine the work of VHCD.

We wish the commissioners and the community success in this collaborative effort.

VHCD public meetings take place on the first and third Wednesdays of each month, held publicly in the education room of Vashon Presbyterian Church, and also remotely, on Zoom.

We hope to see you there.

Find out more about VHCD, and how you can make your voice heard in its decisions going forward, at vashonhealthcare.org.