PORT ANGELES — The doctors and medical staff at the Virginia Mason Port Angeles clinic are determined to keep the clinic up and running no matter who owns it, the clinic’s chief physician said Saturday.
“We’re going to do our darndest to still be here for a long time to come,” said Dr. Bill Kintner during a telephone interview.
On Thursday, an executive with the Seattle-based healthcare system said it has triggered plans to pull out of Port Angeles for financial reasons.
Kintner said executives at Virginia Mason told him that the transition would take about six months, but he said he wouldn’t be surprised if it took longer.
With its approximately 110 employees, and 19,000 individual patients over the past two years, the news of Virginia Mason’s decision to pull out of Port Angeles is “abrupt” and “disappointing,” he said.
Picture was brightening
Kintner said the clinic’s finances have seen hard times, but they have been looking up over the past two years.
“I thought that since we were on an improving trend. that would have carried the day,” he said.
“That obviously wasn’t the case.”
Virginia Mason has owned the Port Angeles clinic for the past 10 years.
Prior to that it was independent, and Kintner was a managing partner. The clinic will turn 60 years old in January.