Voters to decide fate of 24-hour clinic

Published 12:58 pm Thursday, October 2, 2008

SNOQUALMIE – Health care is a brutal business, but it is one Jeff Lyle thinks is worth every cent that is paid into it.

That is why Lyle, who is superintendent of the Snoqualmie Valley Hospital, will be campaigning for new health care services in the Valley in the next few weeks. On Tuesday, Feb. 4, voters will be asked to cast their ballot on a levy that would fund an urgent-care facility at his hospital.

The levy would add an additional seven cents to the present 43-cent tax paid for every $1,000 of assessed valuation of property in the hospital district.

If approved, the money will go toward the maintenance and operation of a 24-hour facility that could treat emergency patients seven days a week.

The clinic would be a Level 5 facility, meaning that a medical practitioner would be on site 24 hours a day. Serious trauma patients, however, would be routed to the Level 3 emergency room at Overlake Hospital Medical Center in Bellevue or to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, which has the only Level 1 emergency room in the region.

For the complete story, pick up a copy of this week’s Valley Record