PORT LUDLOW — A new urgent care medical clinic is a possibility for Port Ludlow, perhaps sometime during the second quarter of this year, Jefferson Healthcare CEO Mike Glenn told a packed meeting at the Bay Club on Thursday night.
Glenn spent about 1 ½ hours answering questions and explaining the prospects for a clinic in Port Ludlow to more than 100 people.
A new clinic would likely locate in the same space previously used by Madrona Hill Urgent Care, which closed its doors in Port Ludlow a couple months ago after owner Jim Blair struggled to make it since early 2009.
“This is an investment,” Glenn said, “an investment in our future, growing our investments in Port Ludlow.”
Blair, a physician assistant, said Jefferson Healthcare hospital has more resources to make a go of it than he had, and he’s fully supportive of their plan.
Blair has run an urgent-care clinic with the same name in Port Townsend since 2006.
Glenn, who has only been on the job a few months, said he proposed the clinic for Port Ludlow after asking a primary care consultant to review the demographics and chances of success.
He estimates the new clinic would lose about $184,000 its first year of operation, and about $52,000 more during its second year, then reach a profit-making stage during its third year.
Blair did not have the resources to take that kind of loss, he noted.
But “we’re not really doing this because of the profit, it’s mission driven,” Glenn said, as part of the hospital district’s commitment to improving community health and health care.
The atmosphere of the meeting was enthusiastic, although not without some skepticism as occasional questioners wanted to bend Glenn’s ear about an unsatisfactory experience at Jefferson Healthcare’s hospital in Port Townsend.
It got to be a bit much for Michael Cahn, a retired physician from Rochester, N.Y.
His experiences with the hospital have been good, he said, and “when we start comparing stories, it’s important to get a view of the overall quality in comparison,” he said.
Howard Koester pledged complete support.
“I view this clinic here as potentially saving my life,” said Koester, who is 84 and on fulltime oxygen.
“I would switch to this for my primary care,” he said.
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Julie McCormick is a freelance writer and photographer living in Port Townsend. Phone her at 360-385-4645 or e-mail juliemccormick10@gmail.com.
