Evergreen Hospital Medical Center needs our help getting a state license for 80 more beds. As a long time Kirkland resident and a volunteer community advisor for Evergreen, I worked to get bonds passed to build and support the hospital. This is my hospital of choice.

Now we need to provide the beds for our service area. My family saw this firsthand in December 2006 during an emergency when my husband was diverted to another hospital because a bed wasn’t available.

We already have the space. Foresighted voters recognized the population boom in the hospital district and in 2004 gave a 66 percent approval rating to the bond to build the bed tower. With our large service area and growing population, we now need to encourage the Department of Health to get their act together and approve the beds.

In hospital industry language, Evergreen has exceeded the optimal level of bed occupancy and with current growth, will reach crisis levels by 2009. Since Evergreen is publicly funded, we must meet the needs of the community. And without the additional licenses, other families besides mine will be turned away.

The increase will require no new taxes. The majority of the new beds will be set up in patient rooms vacated when the new inpatient tower opened in 2007. Using existing space means the first 48 new beds will be available next year at a cost of $1.6 million. The remaining 32 beds, costing $13.2 million, would go in the inpatient tower in 2013. All additional beds will be funded through patient care revenue.

I’m urging the Washington Department of Health to increase Evergreen Hospital Medical Center’s bed capacity from 244 to 307. A formal request was filed with the Department of Health’s Certificate of Need Office May 9, 2008. A public hearing begins at 10:30 a.m., Friday, Aug. 15, at the Kirkland Library, 308 Kirkland Avenue.

Your letters of support can be sent to the Certificate of Need Program, Mail Stop 47852, Olympia, Wa. 98504-7852..

We provided the hospital. Now we need the beds.

Teddy Overleese serves as a Community Advisor for Evergreen Healthcare.