PORT ANGELES — Like the train hurtling toward the heroine tied to the tracks, the Virginia Mason clinic crisis has come closer and closer for seven months.
And like the leading man snatching her away at the last minute, Olympic Medical Center rescued the health-care facility — mostly in the past 10 days.
Now it’s called the Olympic Medical Physicians Primary Care Clinic, and the question of whether the hero and the ex-damsel in distress will live happily ever after must wait for the next episode.
What was certain Monday, however, was that the Eighth Street clinic was open as promised for patients — although a deliberately lighter load for the debut — with six of its nine family physicians and about 30 staff.
“We’re open,” said Pamela Newman, the medical center’s assistant director of business development.
“Patients are being seen.”
The first day under the new name started with a kickoff breakfast at 7 a.m.
The doors opened two hours later.
Lee and Gail Berg of Port Angeles, patients of Dr. Roger Oakes for 30 years, were the first patients.
Dr. Larry Gordon described the morning as hectic and “kind of clumsy.”
“The phones went down this morning,” he said, “and we couldn’t figure out how the computers were working.”
Olympic Medical Center had replaced all the computers that Virginia Mason Medical Center removed and took back to Seattle.
“It was like working in a brand-new clinic,” Gordon said.
Doctors also made do without electronic medical records, and they had to go to the reception desk to learn what patients they would see, he said.
Still, by Monday afternoon, Gary Kriedberg, executive director of Olympic Medical Physicians, could say: “I think it’s going phenomenally well, considering we had about 10 days to get ready.”
Olympic Medical Physicians is a division of OMC that recruits and retains specialists who operate a neurology clinic, sleep disorders center, women’s clinic, urology clinic and — as of Monday — the ex-Virginia Mason Klahhane Clinic on Georgiana Street.
“The continuity of care is progressing very nicely,” Kriedberg said.