PORT ANGELES – Olympic Medical Center commissioners likely will face a hostile audience of primary care clinic patients when they meet tonight at the hospital, 939 Caroline St.
Members of the Peninsula Medical Coalition plan to pack Linkletter Hall at 6 p.m. to demand that commissioners reach a contract with nine family physicians of the former Virginia Mason clinic.
The doctors have worked with no contract since Dec. 31 at the facility, now owned by the hospital and called the Olympic Medical Physicians Primary Care Clinic.
However, Rhonda Curry of OMC, speaking for hospital commissioners and CEO Eric Lewis, said Lewis planned to deliver only “a verbal update” of the situation at the meeting.
“We are focused on not negotiating in public,” Curry said.
Harlan Knudson, the commissioners’ chairman, said an agreement could come “a little bit later,” although he was certain one would be reached.
“I have every confidence that this is going to work out just fine,” Knudson said.
“We’re well on our way to resolving it.”
A spokesman for the doctors could not be reached for comment.
