Eugene has been without an emergency room since Peacehealth closed its University District Emergency Department nearly a year and a half ago.
But, according to reporting by Christian Wihtol for the Eugene Weekly, Springfield’s McKenzie-Willamette Hospital is moving forward with plans to build an ER in Eugene. KLCC’s Rachael McDonald spoke with Wihtol to learn more.
Rachael McDonald: You reported that there is now a possible location for a freestanding Emergency Department in Eugene. What did you find out?
Christian Wihtol: Well, the exact location is proposed as being in West Eugene. It's between 6th and 7th Avenues. It's a little bit east of what probably a lot of people identified the Big Y shopping center, so it's in that part of town. Lots of people have driven past that location many times and never noticed it because it's a big parking lot that's used for parking cars for the Kia Dealership that's next door to it.
McDonald: The idea of a freestanding emergency department would be something new in Eugene. How does that work? Would it be similar to an ER at a full hospital?
Wihtol: Well, it's important to remember these are tentative plans that, McKenzie-Willamette and its architect submitted to the city. So, they're working out the details with the city staff as far as planning requirements and exactly what would be in the emergency department is not clear yet. These are unusual. Freestanding emergency departments are unusual. There's only one freestanding emergency department in Oregon, and that's in Brookings, it's part of Curry General Hospital, which is in Gold Beach, which is about 20 miles away. So, these are unusual facilities in Oregon, although they're somewhat common in some other parts of the country. They're physically removed from their hospital. This location in West Eugene would be about 8 miles from McKenzie-Willamette. But other than being physically removed to the hospital, it should have all the typical functions of an emergency department. So, it would have the same level of care as a hospital-based emergency department, emergency certified, medical doctors, advanced imaging, and specialized personnel. It would typically be open 24 hours every day of the year. And it would handle a wide range of medical emergencies, life threatening, and so on, so it's much more intense than an urgent care facility.
McDonald: So, identifying a location for this Emergency Department is a big step, but your article says there are still a lot of hurdles to this project. What are those hurdles?
Wihtol: Yes, well, there's of course, making sure that it would comply with planning requirements. So, that area appears to be zoned community commercial and hospital facilities such as this appear to be allowed there, but the hospital needs to make sure of that with the city staff. Also, they would need to acquire, somehow gain control of the property. It's currently owned by the Kiefer family that owns the Kia dealership. And then there's Oregon Health Authority certificate of need process that would likely need to be gone through. That's used to evaluate capital projects that hospitals pursue to ensure that services are needed and that the way that the hospital is proposing to address those services is the right way to do it. In this case it's the lack of a convenient emergency medical department– emergency department care that's being sought.
McDonald: And have you heard anything back from McKenzie-Willamette since your article?
Wihtol: No, I haven't heard from them. They didn't reply to me a couple times when I contacted them, so they're not apparently ready to talk about it at this time.
McDonald: Do you have a sense of the timeline for this project?
Wihtol: They've previously mentioned, when their CEO last September spoke generally about the plans to build this emergency department he had indicated it was a couple of years. So it's a fairly complex project. So, it would not be an immediate thing that people would see.
McDonald: So, your beat for the Eugene Weekly is called Bricks and Mortar, and it requires you to do a lot of digging into public records. Why is this kind of reporting interesting to you?
Wihtol: Well, thank you for asking about this. I do enjoy finding out and presenting information that helps readers understand their urban surroundings and all the changes that are taking place, building up, tearing down, rebuilding, and so on. There's a tremendous amount of development taking place in Eugene Springfield. And when I use public records, it helps me get a jump on what is going on well before the choreographed official announcements and well before construction crews show up to work. So that's why I like doing that.
Christian Wihtol is a reporter for the Eugene Weekly. He’s previously reported for the Eugene Register-Guard.
