Peninsula Community Health Services could open a new medical clinic on Bainbridge Island early next year, agency CEO Jennifer Kreidler-Moss told the Kitsap Sun this week, assuming they get funding through the state’s capital budget.
PCHS, a federally qualified health center providing primary care and other services in Kitsap, Mason and part of rural Pierce County, purchased a former optometrists office on Winslow Way using just over $1 million in reserve funds, Kreidler-Moss said. They plan to convert the mixed-use retail complex into a primary care clinic with two primary care providers, two behavioral health staff serving about 2,500 people per year.
Permits for the project have already been approved, Kreidler-Moss said. The opening of the project now hinges on state funds. The agency has asked for about $556,000 to complete renovations.
Those funds have been earmarked in the Senate’s capital budget, but do not appear in the House’s version. That leaves the project up in the air at a time when money is tight. Washington is facing a roughly $14 billion budget deficit over the next four years, and it remains uncertain how legislators plan to address that gap.
A final budget is expected at some point this week, before the last day of the state’s regular legislative session on April 27. If state funding for the clinic is not included, Kreidler-Moss said the facility will remain vacant and they will try again next year.
Bainbridge residents have been asking PCHS to build a clinic on the Island for years, Kreidler-Moss said, after a series of providers consolidated or left the community. Until recently, the agency had been unable to afford a space there.
“We have been asked fairly regularly since 2021 to show up on the island,” she said. “We are excited that we finally found something that was within our price range.”
Bainbridge Island Mayor Ashley Matthews said the city lost a few providers around the start of the pandemic, including a Swedish-owned primary care clinic that closed in 2021.
There is a Virginia Mason Franciscan Health Clinic on the Island at 1344 Wintergreen Lane NE, “that does good work,” Matthews said, but they are at capacity. The city does not have enough providers needed to meet the need, she said, forcing residents to travel to Poulsbo or take the ferry into Seattle.
At least 1,000 people living in Bainbridge go to the PCHS clinics in Poulsbo or Kingston, Kreidler-Moss said.
Peninsula Community Health Services typically provides care for patients who are under or uninsured, yet as access challenges persist, the number of patients with commercial insurance has grown to about a third of its payors.
“At this point there’s just such an access gap for all that we don’t really care what insurance you have,” she said. “The access is limited in our county so even if it is a matter of serving more commercial patients out there, who don’t have to travel, that will free up more spots at other places.”
Conor Wilson is a Murrow News fellow, reporting for the Kitsap Sun and Gig Harbor Now, a nonprofit newsroom based in Gig Harbor, through a program managed by Washington State University.
This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: Peninsula Community Health planning new medical clinic on Bainbridge