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Over the last decade, especially in my roles as lead nurse for the now-closed PeaceHealth Urgent Care Gateway, and more recently as staff nurse at RiverBend Emergency Department from 2019-2024, I have watched PeaceHealth methodically frustrate the delivery of health care to our community.
First, PeaceHealth closed two of their urgent care facilities. Then, they closed the University District hospital. No strategic plan was offered for restructuring, reorganizing or collaborating to maintain a reasonable service capacity for Eugene, Springfield and the surrounding areas. All the while, primary care was left a meager afterthought, with patient waitlists growing. Then there was a round of layoffs. And then another. And then another.
As a concerned member of the patient-facing staff at RiverBend, I joined committees and connected with middle and upper management, asked questions, spoke up and talked to former colleagues who had moved on or up in the PeaceHealth ranks. Not once did I meet someone who was working as hard as we were on the front lines to find new ways to solve the very practical problems of exploding patient volumes, boarding in the emergency department, poor staffing and a shortage of beds and equipment.
“It’s like this everywhere,” was the common refrain from PeaceHealth executives and administrators—as if righting the sinking ship was someone else’s job. Notably, despite the financial losses that reportedly led to the closure of the two urgent care facilities and the University District hospital, PeaceHealth was able to complete a flashy rebranding campaign and acquire a handful of new executives.
This latest move by PeaceHealth—to discontinue the longstanding contract with Eugene Emergency Physicians (EEP) to staff our local emergency departments, on the premise that ApolloMD will swoop in with all the resources to “take emergency services to the next stage”—smacks of surrender, resignation and an absolute disinterest in the health of our community, the health of the organization and the health of its employees.
What resources can ApolloMD possibly bring to bear on July 1—in time for high trauma season—that PeaceHealth hasn’t been slashing and burning over the last decade? What resources are they going to bring from Atlanta that EEP providers, RiverBend nursing staff and support staff haven’t been clamoring about for years?
If ApolloMD holds the magic wand, then why didn’t PeaceHealth get them here sooner? Why haven’t they fixed emergency care nationwide already? And just how long have they been hiding this catalog of 50-plus fresh-faced, bright-eyed clinicians ready to relocate to Oregon?
None of PeaceHealth’s moves in the last five to 10 years make sense—unless, of course, you are an MBA/MHA-type looking for ways to keep your six-figure salary afloat without doing any of the real grunt work to improve health care access and delivery in our region.
None of these moves make sense unless you feel zero percent accountable to your employees, patients and community. None of these moves make any sense unless, like PeaceHealth executives Jim McGovern and Kim Ruscher, you have completely forgotten that PeaceHealth is a not-for-profit organization, tracing its roots back to a group of benevolent nuns who opened a hospital to care for loggers back in the 1890s.
PeaceHealth was not conceived as a business and should not be run by corporate interests and insurance companies. Health care is community service—one hallmark of an evolved society. And providing emergency care is an honor. Doing it effectively requires strong relationships built on trust, compassion, collaboration, transparency and a boatload of institutional knowledge.
Everyone at EEP, and most everyone I worked alongside at RiverBend ED, knows this. And they know exactly what is needed for a functional emergency care system: Space. Staff. Security. Teamwork. Community collaboration. And, most importantly, reliable detours and off-ramps for primary care, urgent care, chronic care, specialty care, end-of-life care and behavioral health patients. Everyone at EEP has been begging, pleading and waiting for PeaceHealth’s executive team to do something to help.
But this? Dismissing the very people who have been holding up the roof of your burning buildings for 35 years? This is your best move?
To my former colleagues at EEP: I am so unbelievably proud of you for standing up, standing together and finally saying, “enough is enough.” I know that livelihoods and mortgage payments, student loan payments and child care plans are all on the line right now. I know how hard it is to walk away from this work, from your patients and from your community.
To Gov. Kotek and our outspoken Oregon state representatives and state senators: Thank you for standing with EEP. Thank you for standing against the corporate control of clinical operations and patient care.
To all my former RiverBend colleagues: Thank you for your tireless service to our community. For your care. For your service. For your voices. For your strength. For your sacrifices. Stay strong. Hold the line. Everyone who cares about patients will be with you, on the right side of history. The whole country is watching now.
Once upon a time, PeaceHealth called us all essential workers. They are about to find out just how essential you all are.
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