ISLAND HEALTHCARE

More reporting needed

The Beachcomber’s December 5 article describing Matt Vinci’s tenure as fire chief includes a claim from Vinci, a VIFR board member, and a VIFR staff member that they believe that the Vashon Health Care District board “never seriously considered VIFR’s proposal” to undertake urgent care services on the island.

When an allegation like this is made in an article, The Beachcomber has a responsibility to make space in the article for the target of the allegation to respond. A better approach, I think, would have been to leave statements like this out of the tribute article and interrogate this and other claims of Chief Vinci’s regarding urgent care in a separate article.

This article would describe the VHCD Board’s process in selecting DispatchHealth, with supporting information from the four board members who voted for the proposal (spoiler alert: the board did seriously consider both proposals). It would include assessments from island medical professionals about the relative merits of the two proposals the board considered.

It would look at other locations where mobile urgent care operates to see if there is any evidence that they “disrupt” emergency services. It would ask King County Public Health and EMS experts if they share Chief Vinci’s opinions about an independent urgent care service.

I look forward to seeing such an article.

Tim Morrison