Watch Bill Spivey’s entire presentation to the Sitka Chamber of Commerce on 3-5-25.
The big unknown for Bill Spivey – and almost everyone else involved in federally-funded programs – is how the Trump administration’s funding freeze will affect the Indian Health Service, which contributes substantially to the tribal health consortium’s budget.
Spivey said the effects of a possible loss of IHS funding had not “trickled down” to him from upper management, although he knew it was top of mind.
“I think all I can say is be less impactful than it would have been once upon a time,” he said.
SEARHC took over the World War II-era Mt. Edgecumbe Hospital in 1986, and has been the only hospital in Sitka since the closure of Sitka Community Hospital in 2019. In order to win the $200 million to build the new Mt. Edgecumbe Medical Center, SEARHC had to invest over $20 million in new housing, constructing over 40 units.
Spivey said housing continues to be a problem for staff recruitment.
“We’re not interested in being in the real estate business, it’s not what we do,” said Spivey. “We’re in the healthcare business. We got involved in creating places to live because we had to. And right now, if I could quietly vote which I can’t, if I had a place for my visiting nurses to live, if I could offer housing for six months while somebody could live somewhere while they find a place to live? That would be my vote.”
Spivey said that he had interviewed and hired new staff, only to have them back out when they discovered how hard it was to find housing in Sitka. When an audience member suggested revisiting SEARHC’s child care program, Spivey didn’t object, but noted that the childcare crunch wasn’t limited to SEARHC’s Sitka operation.
“We have 15 board members in 15 different communities in Southeast Alaska,” he said. “So the question to be appropriately asked, ‘If you’re going to do child care in Sitka, are you going to do it in Angoon?’”
Spivey said that SEARHC had significantly expanded specialty care in recent years, both in Sitka and in Juneau, and it was reducing the amount of travel needed for many patients. But even with a completely new facility, advanced critical care was still going to mean medevacing patients to larger hospitals.
“That issue, ironically enough, is not so much about the hospital, it’s about staff,” said Spivey. “It’s about how do I get that level of nurse, that level of respiratory therapist, that level of physical therapist, that can keep their skill set up at a high enough level to manage that very sick person… it’s almost a chicken-and-egg situation.”
Spivey said staff were looking forward to moving into the new Mt. Edgecumbe Medical Center, although the date is uncertain. Personally, he was cheering for the new parking lot to be paved, since it will reduce the noise of the heavy equipment moving across it. And the old hospital? Spivey said the future of the current facility has yet to be decided by the board. He called it the $64,000 question. “I’d tell you the answer if they gave me the money,” he said, “but they won’t.”
