Sweet Home City Council members last week made a timely attempt to capitalize on the momentum and public interest associated with Samaritan Health’s plans for Wiley Creek Community.
They made it pretty clear that this is a chance for Samaritan to strengthen its relationship with Sweet Home residents, to go beyond just patching up the rift that developed two weeks ago following the announcement that Samaritan planned to convert the assisted living facility at Wiley Creek to a live-in substance abuse treatment center.
A review of all the gory details isn’t necessary at this point. Suffice to say that we’re moving in a positive direction. The key thing now is to keep that going.
It appears that the tempest that erupted following the plan to close Wiley Creek’s Main Lodge has focused Samaritan officials’ attention on the realities surrounding the property and Sweet Home’s pride and investment in it.
Most of that investment is emotional, except for those who pay to live there, but it is still a significant commitment, as Samaritan has acknowledged by changing its plans.
At Tuesday’s meeting, as we report on page 1 of today’s issue, a number of very interesting and worthwhile ideas were broached about how the property could better serve the community – and ultimately be more profitable.
The latter is a problem we all need to be concerned about. Samaritan hasn’t made a lot of the fact that Wiley Creek has been in the red since its inception, but that came out last week and it should be a concern to us all.
As our story reports, suggestions for beefing up the service potential – and value – of Wiley Creek include urgent care, expanded physical therapy, memory care and stroke therapy.
It’s no secret to anyone who has a connection to the folks living at Wiley Creek that its distance from Samaritan Lebanon Community Hospital is a detriment. It’s resulted in more than one departure – to Lebanon or Albany, where medical care is more readily available in a timely fashion. Others have simply packed up and moved elsewhere, without ever giving Wiley Creek a chance.
Councilmen Greg Mahler and Dave Trask, both firefighters, made an impassioned and, we think, very valid case for why urgent care would be a good fit for the East County. Not only would it ilkely save lives, but it would significantly benefit the already beleaguered Sweet Home Fire and Ambulance District, which puts exponentially more miles on its equipment than other local fire districts, as they noted.
To be blunt, the prevailing notion among many East County residents is that Samaritan’s attention is focused elsewhere. It’s not reassuring to wait weeks or months for a chance to see a doctor at Sweet Home Family Medicine, which lacks facilities and personnel to handle anything other than basic visits to the doctor.
This is not a criticism of the clinic’s staff, who are committed and, in many cases, go the second mile for patients. But the fact that it’s not uncommon for the clinic to call an ambulance for someone suffering cardiac symptoms, to transport them to Lebanon or beyond is not comforting. Neither is the fact, as Mahler pointed out in the council meeting, that about one-third of ambulance trips don’t stop at SLCH because it often is overloaded.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but when the lack of local medical resources is factored into all that aggressive building Samaritan is doing everywhere but here, we aren’t left feeling warm and cozy.
Establishing more immediate urgent care facilities and personnel right at Wiley Creek would not only send a message to local residents that Samaritan cares about Sweet Home, but it makes sense to think that it might increase the appeal of Wiley Creek to seniors looking for a place to settle.
The fact that Wiley Creek has never grown past the first of several planned phases in its nearly 20 years of existence, because the demand apparently hasn’t been significant enough, signifies how badly this problem needs to be addressed.
Why not? What’s missing that would cause a senior to choose a facility where all they would see from their window is a patch of grass and some concrete sidewalks, compared to Wiley Creek’s backdrop of tall forested mountains?
We get the problem here. We understand what Samaritan executives have stated: that the economy of scale that makes other senior living communities in the Mid-Valley profitable isn’t there for Wiley Creek.
We have intelligent, motivated local residents who get it, just like Samaritan got it that we want to keep Wiley Creek.
Let’s get it together and solve this problem.