PORT ANGELES — All right, everybody get back into the water.
Olympic Medical Therapy and Rehabilitation last week dedicated its refurbished aquatic therapy pool — 4,300 gallons of 94-degree warmth that lets people with physical disabilities heal by cheating gravity.
The pool at 321 N. Chambers St. might have gone dry were it not for an inpouring of donations from its users, therapists, doctors, even Olympic Medical Center commissioners.
The hospital had lost $1.4 million last year and frozen capital spending, and its officials announced they would close the pool rather than repair it for $50,000.
They quickly found themselves in hot water as pool users and others packed OMC meetings, citing the need for heated hydrotherapy.
The pool’s water supports a person’s weight that otherwise would make therapeutic exercise painful or impossible, and its density provides gentle resistance for their strengthening maneuvers.
Water in Port Angeles’ William Shore Memorial Pool is kept at about 84 degrees, too cool for therapeutic best benefits, proponents said.
The next nearest hydrotherapy facility is in Silverdale.
Supporters raised $25,000 to repair the pool, the liner of which had failed and which needed repairs to the machinery that raises and lowers its floor into the water, operates a treadmill and lets patients watch their movements on closed-circuit television.
The Olympic Medical Center Foundation led the drive, which raised $14,000 at an Aug. 23 pig roast at Barhop Brewing, 124 W. Railroad Ave. More money came from small donors.
But even the $25,000 the foundation eventually collected — including $6,000 from an anonymous donor — wouldn’t have met the cost of repairing the pool.
Up stepped Tim and Pat Morgan of Port Angeles with a match for the money the foundation raised.
HydroWorx of Seattle started repairs in December and finished them Jan. 23. The pool was closed for about a week.
The Morgans attended the dedication last Thursday.
Tim Morgan said he’d been motivated to make the donation after reading in the Peninsula Daily News about the pool’s possible closure and the plight of it patients.
He and others who’d helped save the pool watched as Sandy Smith of OMC’s Human Resources Department demonstrated how its machinery could lower her in a PVC wheelchair into the water.
She walked on the treadmill and monitored her underwater movements on TV.
She also showed how patients could use buoyant barbells or plastic paddles to exercise, support themselves with the help of floats or use removable rails to steady themselves in the 8-foot-by-12-foot-by-6-foot pool.
Chris Shaw, certified orthopedic specialist, narrated how the pool provides “a lot of treatment options for those who cannot exercise on land.”
Some 40 to 44 patients will use the pool for twice-monthly sessions, but the therapy and rehabilitation center will allow “graduates” to continue to exercise there as they continue to heal from injuries or recover their mobility from illnesses like arthritis.
They will contribute to meeting the pool’s continuing costs.
Although hospital officials had dredged up a bucket of dissent for proposing to close the pool, CEO Eric Lewis said such a revenue-negative facility probably wouldn’t have survived at a privately owned medical center.
“It shows the benefit of being a locally owned and controlled hospital,” he said at the dedication.
“Because we are locally owned and controlled, we could do this.”
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Reporter James Casey can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5074, or at jcasey@peninsuladailynews.com.
