Ketchikan's hospital, its own residents can't get answers

Ketchikan owns its hospital and leases it to PeaceHealth, and at a committee meeting last week residents made clear they don't trust the answers they're getting about the money or the medicine.

On the money: the lease requires the hospital to reinvest its trailing three-year average income into the facility. Administrator Sarah Cook said that average is still negative, and capital spending has fallen every year, from about $6 million in 2024 to $1.7 million in 2026. One resident said the city has never gotten the audited annual figures the lease requires, only late statements and quarterly "numbers brought forward." Another listed the questions members should be asking — cash on hand, non-operating revenue, how much stayed in Ketchikan. None were put to Cook.

On the medicine: the hospital is renovating an ER where patients already wait in hallways during cruise season, a committee member said. Asked how many beds the new ER will have, administrator Scott Smith said he didn't know and would report back; in April he'd said the count won't rise, only that flow should improve. The member described a patient who arrived by ambulance on a 20,000-passenger day, found no open room, and after admission wasn't seen by a physician again until 3:30 the next afternoon.

The remodel is listed at over $13 million, with a new lab near $6.4 million on top — more than the hospital earns locally, Cook said. The bed count is still unanswered.