PORT TOWNSEND — A new reproductive health policy is now in place at Jefferson Healthcare that will lead to the Port Townsend hospital offering a full range of women’s health services, including abortion.
“I think that the hospital has been very responsive and responsible,” said Christel Hildebrandt, a citizen member of the task force that created recommendations for the new service.
“The board recognized that the hospital is publicly owned, and the majority of the members of the public that I talked to said they wanted a full suite of women’s healthcare services.”
On Wednesday, the hospital board unanimously approved adopting the recommendations of a task force that was formed in response to the American Civil Liberty Union’s assertion that the East Jefferson County hospital was out of compliance with state law in its provision of abortion services.
The Seattle office of the ACLU informed the hospital of its stand in a Feb. 18 letter addressed to the hospital board and its CEO, Mike Glenn.
The hospital’s quick response and resolution could set an example for other hospitals, according to Jennifer Shaw, the ACLU’s deputy director in its Seattle office.
“We were pleased how responsive they were in creating the task force and approving its recommendations,” Shaw said.
“It could serve as a model for other rural hospitals, in their staying connected to the needs of the community.”
The ACLU will watch how the new plans are implemented, Shaw said.
“They still need to hire the staff and get the services in place.”
The ACLU also sent letters of concern to Whidbey General Hospital in Coupeville and Mason General Hospital in Shelton at the same time that it filed a lawsuit alleging noncompliance against Skagit Valley Hospital on Thursday.
The other hospitals have not made appreciable progress on the matter, Shaw said, and she hopes Jefferson Healthcare will share information with administrators from those organizations,
The report was first presented to the board on June 17 but no action was taken at that time.
On Wednesday, Glenn presented the goals, which are to develop a “one stop” resource for pregnancy counseling, options and referrals, develop an office based surgical miscarriage management program, develop a medical abortion program and, when all these are in place, develop a surgical abortion program.
The 11-member task force had seven hospital staff members, two public health representatives and two citizen representatives.
The next step will be for the hospital to form a committee charged with developing an implementation plan for the recommendations which will begin meeting in the fall, according to hospital spokesperson Kate Burke.
There is no timetable for the service offerings since the new committee is charged with developing the logistics, Burke said, but the expectation is that everything will be in place in 2016.
This process will be monitored both by the ACLU and the community, representatives say.
Hildebrandt said the task force has plans to meet again in about four months.
A meeting is scheduled for next week of the ad-hoc group that initially lobbied the hospital board to take action.
“We need to see how this gets implemented,” Hildebrandt said.
“We’ll be checking back.”
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Jefferson County Editor Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or cbermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
