Neish Ken Hoyt guides over 200 attendees in blessing the newly-completed medical center on Japonski Island. Elders and speakers are seated in rolling chairs stationed in front of the building’s entrance — the rest of the attendees are packed like sardines behind them in the cool shade. A white ribbon with green and blue designs blocks the glass entrance, alongside the podium where Neish speaks from. 

For Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium CEO, Charles Clement, the completed hospital is deeply meaningful. 

“My board knows that I was reflecting this morning… and I actually got a little teary eyed,” says Clement. “This is a pretty emotional thing for me. This has been a 10 year endeavor.”

What’s most exciting for many of the speakers and attendees about the new hospital is the ability for Sitkans and residents of surrounding villages to access necessary medical care closer to home. Amidst concerns over limited transportation between villages, Sitka Mayor Steven Eisenbeisz addresses how the city plans to work with the hospital to resolve that. 

“We know that the ferry service is diminishing. We all see the effects on that,” says Eisenbeisz. “But on the plus side, the community of Sitka is investing heavily in their airport. So those citizens that need to get to health care from the larger planes can. And we’re investing in a float plane base as well. So those from the smaller towns that don’t have large plane access, they can fly in basically at the doorstep [of the hospital].”

SEARHC took over the World War II-era Mt. Edgecumbe Hospital in 1986, and has been the only hospital in Sitka since it purchased Sitka Community Hospital in 2019. The new facility was built with support from the Indian Health Service, a federal agency within the department of health that supports Native American and Alaska Native patients. The organization’s deputy director, Ben Smith, says he’s thrilled with the finished product. 

“The Mt. Edgecumbe Medical Center stands as a powerful example of self determination and action, where partnership empowers local leadership to design and deliver care that is responsive, culturally grounded and centered on patient families,” says Smith.

After the ribbon is cut, the wide-eyed attendees enter the new building for the first time, following the Sheet’ka Kwaan Dance Group and Gajaa Heen dancers, documenting every moment while they perform an entrance song.

Bill Spivey is the administrator for the Mt. Edgecumbe Medical Center. He stands proudly as he looks up at the hospital’s tall ceiling as visitors wander around the facility and photograph Mt. Edgecumbe volcano seen through the glass walls. He says there are already set plans to bring in patients and medical staff. 

“It’s very [exciting] that we’re going to be bringing two pieces of the medical center here,” says Spivey. “We’re going to bring our behavioral health team and our physical rehab team here to start on May 4, so that will for us be the first patient day.”

Spivey says that the rest of the facility will open on June 27th.

Should restrictions be lifted on a city hospital fund to pay for upgrades to local recreational facilities? Sitka voters will consider that question on the municipal ballot this fall. 

Voters approved a tobacco tax 20 years ago to support the city-owned Sitka Community Hospital. When the hospital was sold to the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium (SEARHC) in 2019, that money continued to go into a fund dedicated to former employees’ retirement. Right now, that fund pretty much breaks even each year, and if it eventually has a surplus, the funds are restricted. 

Sponsors of a ballot initiative, assembly members Chris Ystad and Kevin Mosher, have proposed lifting the restrictions, directing future surplus revenue from the fund toward a multi-purpose sports and recreation complex. 

The idea is exciting for some, including Sitka Youth Soccer President Brian Farley. At the Sitka Assembly meeting on July 22, he said the community deserves an outlet for healthy activities, and youth deserve access to more high school sports. 

“Here in Sitka, our soccer program, just last year, had eight kids who were high school aged who quit soccer because they had no ability to compete for their high school team,” Farley said. “We have no high school football in Sitka. However, in Alaska, there are 36 high school soccer programs in both girls and boys competition, and at least 22 football programs. A turf field would allow for our schools to participate in both soccer and football.” 

Getting the assembly to agree on the initiative hasn’t been seamless. At previous meetings, several assembly members questioned if using the surplus for sports and recreation was the best use of the money, when there are a number of issues they say are more pressing to the community. 

There’s also uncertainty over how much surplus the fund will have and when it’ll be available. 

Finance Director Brooke Volschenk said while some former hospital employees might already be a number of years into their retirement, it’s likely many more are not. Because of that, she said there’s no way for the city to know how long it will be paying out retirement from the hospital fund, or whether that number could increase down the line. 

“In a year where we have a lot of active retired Sitka Community Hospital employees, this liability amount could substantially increase from year to year, and then we would be in trouble,” Volschenk said. “If you look at the fact that what we’re receiving now is barely covering, or not quite covering, the amount of the liability for Fiscal Year ‘26.”

That uncertainty is amplified by the fact that the state tells the city how much it has to pay in PERS liability (the state’s public employees retirement program) every year. And Volschenk said that number isn’t consistent. If the city ever gets to a point where the tobacco tax and the hospital payment aren’t enough to cover that liability, it could be in trouble.

For Fiscal Year 2026, the city has to pay $1.4 million for its PERS liability, she said. Between the $700,000 a year payment from SEARHC and the $800,000 or so the city receives from the tobacco tax, Volschenk said that revenue will be eaten up.

At the assembly meeting, Brian McLaughlin, a member of the Sitka Community Outdoor Recreation Project, said he’d love to see a facility in Sitka that would promote health and recreation for the town.

“That said, we’re not quite that far into our discussion yet,” he said. “What we are here to vote on tonight is simply to get this in front of the voters and whether or not to allow the community as a whole a chance to vote on where to use the funds from the hospital sales. In that respect, I’d ask, what’s the downside of putting it in front of the voters?”

While they weren’t convinced at previous meetings, both Mayor Steven Eisenbeisz and assembly member JJ Carlson said they’d been swayed by community discussions, and decided to vote in favor of putting the question out to the public. 

“Prospecting means you’re staking a claim on something and then hoping it pans out later,” Carlson said. “That’s kind of an analogy I see here with this, because we don’t really know what’s happening in this fund and where it’s going to go in the future. In the last meeting, that was kind of a statement of fear from me, but now I’ve had another two weeks to think of it. And I think prospecting is something we do with new endeavors, and it’s a very big part of the state of Alaska.”

Ultimately, the assembly unanimously approved the proposition for consideration in the Oct. 7 municipal election, where Sitkans will decide if recreation is the right use for the future surplus. 

Sitka’s athletic facilities could get a major upgrade if a proposal the Sitka Assembly is considering gains traction. Sponsors of the initiative to build a sports and recreation complex have identified funding that could support its construction, but freeing up the money will require a vote of the people to amend the city’s Home Rule Charter. While it’s an exciting proposition for some, others wonder whether it’s the best use of the funds. 

Sitka has one artificial-turf ballfield that was built with state money. Building a new one is a costly endeavor. That’s why assembly members Chris Ystad and Kevin Mosher have proposed that the city take on bond debt to cover construction costs and use the excess revenue from a fund dedicated to the former city-owned hospital to cover payments on those bonds.

Right now, the money is set aside to cover retirement costs for former employees of Sitka Community Hospital, which was sold to the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium in 2019. The fund also takes in money from the tobacco tax, and city staff anticipate in the coming years there will be a surplus.

At the Sitka Assembly meeting on July 8, one member of the public and several assembly members wondered if using that surplus for sports and recreation was the best use of the money.   

Lauren Wild is with the Early Childhood Coalition. She said more than a year ago, they identified the tobacco tax as a possible fund to subsidize child care in Sitka. And while she said she supports youth athletics, she feels let down by the city.

“We’re losing kids primarily due to lack of child care and housing,” Wild said. “This body is working on housing, but shows little interest in childcare. Childcare centers need subsidies to operate if we do not invest in it. Now, you’re not going to have any youth left in this community to use the athletic facilities and recreation facilities you want to build and fix with the Sitka Community Hospital Fund.” 

Mayor Steven Eisenbeisz referenced last year’s State of Sitka’s Economy report, in which local business leaders were asked to rank the importance of issues in creating a vibrant business climate. Childcare and attracting and retaining a workforce aged population topped the list. Recreation was at the bottom.

Eisenbeisz said it’s not that the business community doesn’t want recreational facilities, but that those facilities are already sufficiently serviced. 

“We have many fields, we have pools, we have cabins, we have trails, we have playgrounds, but I don’t think there’s anyone at this table that can say that we have sufficient teachers, daycare facilities, and youth education facilities,” Eisenbeisz said. “I have a child in this community who’s going to be a user of athletic facilities, but I think the critically important task right now outweighs the ‘nicer to have’ task for me.”

Several assembly members said while the issue of childcare is incredibly important, there won’t be enough money in the fund to address an issue that large. And, they said, the money won’t be available for years.

“It’s going to take too long,” said assembly member Ystad. “Childcare needs something now, and this is going to be something where there’s not really a decent amount of funding to really make a good impact with childcare for quite some time. But recreation and athletic facilities, they can wait. It isn’t such an urgent thing. We can plan.” 

Assembly member Mosher agreed with Ystad and said sports and recreation facilities will be a major driver in retaining families in Sitka. 

“That’s a very crucial thing that people are interested in,” he said. “They want their children to have things to do.”

Ultimately, after making several amendments to the initiative, including changing the language in the ordinance from “athletic facility” to “athletic and recreational facility” to broaden the use and funding for the facility, the assembly approved it on a 4-2 vote with assembly member JJ Carlson and Mayor Eisenbeisz opposed. It will consider the item again at its July 22 meeting.

If the assembly approves the initiative, it will go before voters in the municipal election this October.

In other business, Lincoln Street will remain open for the rest of the summer. The Sitka Assembly agreed at its meeting Tuesday to keep the street open for the remainder of the cruise season — a decision in line with the most recent recommendation from the city’s tourism commission. 

“We’ve continued to see an improvement in passenger flows in and out of town,” said Amy Ainslie, Planning and Community Development Director. “We have not had any incidents regarding vehicles and pedestrian interactions. And I think the institution of our pedestrian safety guards here at Harrigan [Centennial Hall] has definitely helped with the jaywalking issue.”

As of July 1, Sitka has experienced 29 days with more than 5,000 cruise passengers this season, according to a city memo.

For the past several years, the city closed the downtown thoroughfare on days with high cruise traffic, but the closure policy saw pushback. So this summer, the city began the season with the street open in a two-month trial run. On Tuesday, the assembly extended that trial run through the end of the summer season.  

Assembly members weighed both the pros and cons of keeping Lincoln Street open for the summer, and expressed a desire to review the data after the season wraps up before making a recommendation for next year.

“I’m really, really impartial on this. I see benefits both ways. I see the pros and cons, and I think that they’re both equally important,” Eisenbeisz said. “The one downside, I will say, of keeping the street open is a traffic flow concern that I’ve seen.”

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.”

April is SEARHC’s 20th anniversary of providing tobacco cessation services and tobacco free campuses. Amanda Roberts joined KCAW for the morning interview to discuss current tobacco-free programs and services provided by SEARHC. Listen here:

Employees of the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium in Sitka have threatened to organize, following a recent rollback of their benefits.

Over 150 staff members – including doctors, nurses, and technicians – signed a letter on February 15 protesting unilateral changes to SEARHC’s paid leave policy. The conflict is flaring just days after the organization, which serves communities around Southeast Alaska, announced it was increasing base pay for employees earning less than $25 an hour.

The February 15 letter, addressed to SEARHC administration, was prompted by changes the healthcare nonprofit made to its leave policy that resulted in reduced paid time off (PTO) for most employees. In an email to staff on February 5, SEARHC said that the new system would “allow us to better support new hires, ensuring equitable PTO distribution across our team.” A narrow subset of employees, Tier 1 employees hired in the past three years, saw a slight increase in PTO under the new policy, from six hours to eight hours of leave per pay period.

Although the changes varied based on role and years with the organization, some employees lost about a third of their total paid time off. 

Primary care physician Bob Hunter, who signed the letter, has worked as a doctor in Sitka since 1980. Under the new policy, he lost more than three weeks of annual leave. 

“My initial concern was that I found out one day that I was having three weeks of my personal leave cut for each year,” Hunter said. “My other concern, though, is about younger employees, new hires, and other workers at SEARHC and the effect that PTO changes are having on them.”

One technician, who also signed the letter and asked to remain anonymous, has worked for SEARHC for more than a decade. He lost more than two weeks of leave under the new policy, and he says it’s not just about vacation. 

“Say we get COVID and need to take extended sick leave, or the days when you would take time to go subsistence fishing or hunting or anything like that,” he said.

In their letter to SEARHC administration, employees called the reduction a “breach of trust.” The letter also indicated that the group was prepared to unionize if needed, writing, “we are prepared to organize and act collectively to ensure our working conditions reflect the respect and integrity we deserve.” If the group does decide to unionize, they will be joining a growing trend among health care workers. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 13 percent of healthcare workers were represented by unions in 2023.

The change in SEARHC’s leave policy came at about the same time that the organization publicly announced it was raising its minimum pay. In a February 7 public announcement, SEARHC said, “As part of our ongoing efforts to enhance the overall compensation structure, SEARHC is proud to announce a new $25/hour minimum salary for all direct-hire employees.” It went on to state that the pay increase was part of a strategic goal to “become the employer of choice.” 

That message may not land with existing staff. SEARHC’s top executives draw huge pay: based on IRS documents, CEO Chuck Clement alone earned $2.4 million in 2022, about one-and-a-half million more than the next-highest salaried administrator. 

Dr. Hunter said that he and other letter-signers met with SEARHC leadership after sending their letter, and that his personal concerns have been addressed – but he’s still concerned for other employees.  

“I still have concerns about the effect on people who’ve been here a couple of years, people that hope to stay and have a long career here, and previously had expectations to have more PTO than they’re going to have,” Hunter said. 

The technician who lost over two weeks of leave says he sees the new policy as part of a pattern of decisions from SEARHC that have negatively affected employees. 

“Being able to donate leave to coworkers if they have a crisis where they no longer have the annual leave to cover them, you used to be able to do that rather than them needing to use leave without pay,” he said. “SEARHC also used to have a daycare that was primarily used by employees and then also the community itself after that.”

Hunter said he hopes for better communication with SEARHC moving forward – for the sake of employees and patients.

“I’m hoping for better communication between the employees and the administration,” Hunter said. “And that we have more input when decisions are made that affect us — and affect our patients, which is really what it’s all about.”

In response to a request for comment from KCAW, SEARHC representative Lyndsey Schaefer wrote, “To better ensure and support a fair and equitable PTO accrual schedule across all positions, SEARHC recently updated the Paid Time Off policy. This update considers the market dynamics, including the cost of living for Southeast Alaska, as well as insights and feedback from our existing employees.” 

Since the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium (SEARHC) closed its Medicare-certified home health department in Sitka last September, many Sitkans have publicly opposed the change – through a petition with over 600 signatures and a well-attended listening session in November, which SEARHC did not attend. This week, for the first time since the closure, community members shared feedback directly with SEARHC administrators. That feedback is unlikely to bring the department back.

Cindy Litman was one of 15 Sitkans who testified at Wednesday’s meeting of the Community Health Council, which advises SEARHC on how to best serve the Sitka community.

“I’m grieved that SEARHC closed its Medicare-certified home health office,” Litman said to the virtual room of about 60 people, placing a photo of her late husband on the Zoom screen. “My husband, Tony Guevin, was the beneficiary of Medicare-certified home health services from 2017 until his death in 2019. It’s only through the unique skills and services of home health that we were able to remain in Sitka, and that Tony was able to stay at home for the last two years of his life.”

 Nearly all of the testimony focused on the closure of Sitka’s Medicare-certified home health department last fall. While SEARHC has maintained that the new “home-based care” program offers equivalent services, Litman — and many others testifying — said the programs are not the same.

“I really don’t know whether SEARHC really doesn’t understand the difference between Medicare-certified home health and the healthcare they’re offering through the clinic, or if they really are deliberately being untruthful,” Litman said.

Wednesday’s meeting represented the community’s annual opportunity to share feedback directly with SEARHC. That meeting is written into the charter developed when SEARHC acquired Sitka Community Hospital in 2019, and requires that “a portion of the Council meeting is open to the general public for its input.” 

Some community members felt that the meeting’s structure, which was virtual and limited testimony to 15 Sitkans for three minutes each, didn’t fulfill the spirit of that requirement. In her testimony, Krisanne Rice said that the Zoom format, specifically, prevented some Sitkans from attending. 

“I’m on a Zoom meeting on an iPhone sitting by myself while Jim’s upstairs, and I’m person number 14 out of 15, reading my notes to provide testimony to you about services in Sitka,” Rice said. “Your customers are restricted to a once-a-year opportunity to share concerns. I have the technology and some of the skills to Zoom, but I know people in Sitka who don’t, and thus you’ve eliminated them.”

Other audience members took to the chat after the Council spent nearly half an hour responding to the first three-minute testimony. Community member Lisa Busch wrote, “If this is the only time during the whole year that (only 15 members of) the public has to speak it might be best for the committee to listen and save time for the public comment.” A few minutes later, the chat was disabled, and another community member asked organizers to re-open the chat.

Over the course of the two-hour meeting, community members echoed many of the sentiments expressed at the November forum – that home health had provided critically important services to their families, and that the new program would not fill the same niche.

In spite of ongoing public pressure, SEARHC has shown no interest in revisiting its decision. Council member Susan Padilla, who was appointed to the council in the same meeting, asked SEARHC Chief Medical Officer Elliot Bruhl whether reinstating the home health department was on the table, given community input.

“You know, with some of the communications, and all of the signatures and everything, has any thought been given to that to say, maybe the community really wants a home health department?” Padilla asked.

Bruhl’s response was clear. “Not at this time.”

Disclosure: KCAW employee Fred Olsen, Jr. is a member of the Sitka Community Health Council. 

What will home health look like in Sitka without a home health department at the local hospital? The top doctor at the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium or SEARHC gave an update on the future of home health services at the Sitka Assembly meeting on Tuesday. While there wasn’t much new information, it was another opportunity for community members to voice concerns, and for SEARHC to address them.

In September, the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium or SEARHC, announced it would be closing its home health department. The news generated concerns– what would happen to end-of-life care in the home? Would patients receive the same level of care? And would that care be more expensive? 

In a presentation to the Sitka Assembly on December 12, SEARHC’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Elliot Bruhl tried to answer those questions. 

“The home health department, or agency, no longer exists, but care of patients within the home has continued,” Bruhl said. “It has not stopped. It didn’t stop. Everyone in this community who requires that care that we’re aware of is receiving it and is continuing to receive it.”

Bruhl told the assembly that the care provided to patients in the home would be the same, but it would be through a “home based care” program rather than a stand-alone home health agency. 

So what’s the difference? In order to earn a “home health agency” designation from Medicare, the hospital had to meet additional regulations and requirements for administration and maintenance of records. Doing that required around eight staff members to run the program, and Bruhl said there wasn’t enough demand for home health services in Sitka to justify that level of staffing. 

“Having eight staff in order to perform care for about 20 visits a week,” Bruhl said. “So that’s the reason for the change. And like all businesses, you know, we have to adjust staffing to reflect the demand for services. I think anybody who’s in business understands that.” 

Bruhl said the “home based care” program would be staffed by four people instead of eight– two physical therapists, one occupational therapist and one registered nurse. He said the services will comply with Medicare regulations and will be reimbursed by Medicare, with a 20 percent copay. The home care team would bring in other clinicians in situations where more staff is needed, with services like end-of-life care, for example. 

Bruhl said that there many services SEARHC would like to provide, and will if the demand is there. He pointed to recent expansions at the hospital, like upping their staffing for substance use disorder treatment and opening an opioid treatment clinic. 

“It’d be great if we could provide dialysis, it’d be great if we could do neurosurgery. There’s just not enough demand for those services to justify staffing in that manner. We adjust staffing all the time, we’ve been increasing our staffing in behavioral health to reflect the fact that there’s a tremendous demand in this community for basic behavioral health,” Bruhl said. “We’ve more than doubled our staff in behavioral health in the last two years.” 

Bruhl said he was disappointed in the community response to SEARHC’s announcement about home health. He said some staff had been aggressively confronted with questions about the program. And he said he believed some of the distrust of SEARHC’s motives was rooted in a “deep fault line” created over decades in a town with two hospitals that became a town of one in 2019 when the hospitals merged. And he said the community needed to heal from that history and build trust. 

“I have no illusion that the factual information that I’ve presented this evening will mollify some of that anger and resentment,” Bruhl added.

When the assembly opened the floor to public comment, Cindy Litman said Bruhl’s assessment of resentment didn’t apply to her- she supported the merger between SEARHC and Sitka Community. Her concerns about changes to home health were around care and cost. 

“Dr. Bruhl talked about a 20% copay, but that is not trivial. Because if you’re having several therapies or visits a week, at a few $100 per visit, that 20% becomes several $100 a month. And that may be fine if you’re a physician or a hospital administrator, but for an average retired person over two years time that would have cost us out of pocket thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars.”

And Auriella Hughes, who worried that end-of-life care in the home would be less feasible under the new structure, said she wasn’t put at ease by Bruhl’s presentation.

“Yes, SEARHC is a business. And it’s not profitable to have a certified home health agency. It doesn’t mean that it’s not the right thing. It is the right thing. It’s just not profitable,” Hughes said. “You do it because it’s a service. You talk a lot about services. That is the service we need.” 

Mayor Steven Eisenbeisz thanked Dr. Bruhl for sharing the information and “getting his side of the story out.” 

“I appreciate that, because it does sound like you have quite a PR issue on your hands right now,” Eisenbeisz said. “So I look forward to SEARHC continuing to get the word out about the continued services and the new existing services, because I think the angst in the community is very high right now, and I think that’s on you to to try and ease some of that as much as possible.”

One PR opportunity SEARHC passed on was a recent town hall on the future of home health  hosted by the Woman’s Club. SEARHC was invited to participate and answer questions, but did not send a representative. Dr. Bruhl said that was because of SEARHC’s “commitment to process.” The avenue SEARHC provides for the public to respond and ask questions is the Community Health Council, which was established when SEARHC merged with the Sitka Community Hospital. Once a year, the group takes public testimony. Bruhl said the next Council meeting is in January.

This fall, SEARHC announced it would be closing its home health department. In media interviews, letters and ads in the Sitka Sentinel, hospital officials have repeatedly said that while the department is closing, the services provided to patients will not change, they’ll just be provided by other departments. But some Sitkans remain concerned about the future of home health services, and in November, the Sitka Woman’s Club organized a town hall to discuss the issue. Organizers say they invited SEARHC’s top-ranking staff to attend the facilitated discussion and to answer questions, but the consortium did not send a representative. It’s unclear from the assembly agenda what information will be included in SEARHC’s update or who will be presenting it. No additional materials are attached to the assembly packet. 

The assembly will also consider the draft airport lease agreement between the city and the state. The state owns Sitka’s airport, while the city owns the terminal building. The lease between the two comes right as the city is poised to receive a big federal grant to expand and revamp the airport building. While the state initially wanted to include controversial parking fees in the new lease agreement (parking in Sitka’s airport lot is currently free), fees aren’t written into this contract, though they may come before the assembly in the future for consideration as a sublease agreement. Additional concessions fees for airport vendors, however, are included in the contract. 

In other business, the assembly will consider whether to approve $157,000 in matching funds for the second phase of the Sitka Seawalk, which will extend the seawalk from the library under the O’Connell Bridge. 

The Sitka Assembly meets at 6 p.m. tonight. Raven News will broadcast the meeting live, following Alaska News Nightly. 

Questions were posed, but not answered, in a well-attended listening session Wednesday (11-15-23) on the future of home healthcare in Sitka. The Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium closed its Home Health Department on September 30, leaving many carers and patients unsure about the consistency of in-home services in its absence. SEARHC has said nothing will change, but no one from the consortium was present to address concerns.

Hosted by the Sitka Woman’s Club, the listening session brought about 150 people to Centennial Hall to share stories about their experiences with home healthcare in Sitka, and their questions about what comes next.

Carolyn Fredrickson, a founding member of the Sitka Cancer Survivors Society, said that home health services were invaluable when she was wheelchair-bound last year.

“Without Home Health coming to my home, I would have had to go to Long-Term Care, or be out of Sitka for the year,” Fredrickson said. “I can’t thank them enough for taking such wonderful care of me. They helped me with my morale, with my wellbeing, and I looked forward to having them come into the home three times a week.”

Many others echoed sentiments of gratitude for the home health services offered in Sitka until the SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium, or SEARHC, announced that the program would close at the end of September. SEARHC has maintained that the shift is largely administrative. In an August interview with KCAW, SEARHC Chief Medical Officer Elliot Bruhl said that federal regulations intended for larger cities made operating the Home Health department “challenging and inefficient,” but that patients would continue to receive identical services.

“I would kind of describe it like building an international airport in a location where what you really need is an airstrip,” Bruhl said.

Many Sitkans, though, still have questions. Dr. Marilyn Coruzzi, a retired physician who practiced in Sitka for 15 years, wanted details.

“How can it be the same, if we hear one nurse is available where we had three?” Coruzzi said. “How is it going to be the same without much more support and commitment by SEARHC? How is it going to be the same? Give me the details. If somebody’s dying at home, who is going to pronounce the patient, who is going to do the doctor’s orders for pain management?”

SEARHC representatives were invited to attend the event, but declined by email and asked that fliers publicizing the event on Sitka’s SEARHC campus be removed. Coruzzi and several other speakers said they were disappointed that SEARHC did not attend.

“I’m terribly disappointed that SEARHC declined to be here,” Coruzzi said. “Usually when I make a decision, I feel good about it. And I want to explain to those who don’t understand how I came to it. I do have specific questions from SEARHC beyond their recurring ad that says it’s all going to be the same.”

Some speakers said they were interested in pursuing other avenues to share their concerns, including attending a SEARHC board meeting, writing a letter to the Sitka Assembly, and contacting US Senator Lisa Murkowski. Community member Linda Waller suggested responding to SEARHC’s newspaper ads, which state that “there has not been any reduction or gap in SEARHC’s home-based services,” with another ad.

“Perhaps since SEARHC likes to communicate with their ads, why don’t we take out an ad?” Waller said to laughter and applause from the audience. “Would that be a good way to communicate with SEARHC? Half page, full page in the paper with bullet points.”

Organizers said they were pleased with attendance at the event, and that questions and comments will be compiled and sent to SEARHC. Those who weren’t able to attend can submit comments by email to sitkawomansclub@gmail.com.

SEARHC did not respond to request for comment by phone or email by press time Thursday.