Now that a judge has ruled that a labor/consumer-group coalition can't block Providence Everett Medical Center's badly needed expansion, the group should find more productive ways to make its point.
Thurston County Superior Court Judge Anne Hirsch ruled Friday that the Campaign To Make Health Care Work, spearheaded by the politically active Service Employees International Union with the help of two other unions and the Washington Community Action Network, doesn't have legal standing to challenge the state's approval for Providence to add 106 more beds. Those beds are part of the $500 million project underway at the hospital's Colby Campus.
The campaign claimed that the state Department of Health didn't adequately consider the effect of Providence's expansion plans on local health-care costs, apparently figuring that a potential glut of hospital beds could force patient costs higher, despite the obvious need generated by Snohomish County's rapid growth.
That need is even clearer today than when the campaign filed suit in January. Providence has announced that it can't wait for its new medical tower to open in 2011 before adding more beds. Admissions are up 8 percent so far this year, double what the hospital budgeted. So Providence is asking the state to approve 17 beds to be added by next spring.
The campaign has succeeded in making what it said was its major point: that the Department of Health relies too much on the analysis of applicants in deciding whether to approve certificates of need for hospital expansions, and doesn't look closely enough at the overall economic effect of such plans. In her ruling, Hirsch said the issues raised by the campaign "are significant and show the need for work by DOH to clarify the procedure it uses in granting (certificates of need), something of great interest and import to the public."
If the campaign is earnest in its goal of keeping a lid on health-care costs, and not simply engaged in an effort to gain union leverage within the Providence system, it could send no clearer signal than by accepting Hirsch's ruling and moving on without an appeal. Its energy would be more effectively focused on working to improve the Department of Health's certification process outside of this case, which has risked costly delays to the obviously needed Everett project.
