LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Wellness Center at Sutter Lakeside Hospital in Lakeport is set to close at the end of next month.
Hospital spokesperson Rebecca Southwick said the center closes Nov. 30.
The center offers fitness classes, weight training and cardio equipment, personal training services, a stress reduction and relaxation clinic, and the “Lighten Up” eight-week weight management program to paying members.
While the Wellness Center is located on the Sutter Lakeside campus on Hill Road, it's actually operated by the Sutter Pacific Medical Foundation, a separate organization that has as its main function finding and retaining physicians for areas including Lake and Sonoma counties, according to Southwick.
Several years ago Sutter Pacific Medical Foundation took over the ownership of the Wellness Center and nearby Healing House, operating the facilities since that time, Southwick said.
The Wellness Center is closing because Southwick said Sutter Lakeside has decided that it's not economically feasible to operate a gym, and so won't take on the Wellness Center with the foundation pulling out.
“What we get reimbursed for is patient care,” which is what the community needs most, Southwick said.
Letters about he closure already have gone out to members, Southwick said, noting that members who have paid for facility use beyond the closure date will receive refunds.
Lakeport resident Dave Gebhard was one of the members who received a letter announcing the closure.
“A lot of us are elderly disabled, relying on the gym to stay alive,” he told Lake County News.
He said many members started there as a result of physical therapists “who made us reliant on the Wellness Center to keep ourselves ambulatory, much less alive.”
The center mostly has employed exercise instructors and contract employees, and has a small number of employes – two to three, Southwick estimated – who the hospital is looking to keep on or find positions for elsewhere in the Sutter system.
Jennifer Tompkins taught exercise classes at the center for several years, leaving in January after she moved out of county.
Thanks to the center's programs, “There were a lot of people who got transformed there,” she said.
Tompkins said the center offered great rates and a lot of classes, and had a wide-range age demographic. But with other gyms and classes opening in the area people were going elsewhere.
She said she made many lasting friendship there. “It was very comfortable. People didn't feel like they were being judged or sized up.”
The hospital is going to move its physical therapy and rehabilitation services – now housed in a very small space – to the Wellness Center, which is near the recently built mobility park, Southwick said.
The fitness equipment will be retained for physical therapy uses, and also will be available to Sutter Lakeside employees free of charge. Southwick said the hospital's rehabilitation services will continue to offer balance classes and classes for arthritis sufferers.
The Healing House on the campus also has been closed, with the practitioners transferring to a new location at 601 N. Main St. in Lakeport, located across the street from Chase Bank, effective Oct. 1, Southwick said.
Kimberley Curtis, one of the practitioners at the Healing House, offers herbology and acupuncture, while Mary Miche offers marriage and family counseling, and massage therapist Gina Slater provides different modalities. Curtis said they can be reached at 415-264-0685.
It's not yet been decided what will happen with the Healing House on the main campus; Southwick said Sutter Pacific Medical Foundation and Sutter Lakeside are still discussing that. “It's a wonderful space,” with a great vibe, she said.
The closure of the Wellness Center is the latest in a series of change that have taken place at Sutter Lakeside over the last several years.
In 2008 Sutter Lakeside reduced its beds from 69 to 25 in order to become a Critical Access hospital.
The following year Sutter Health reorganized into five regions, with Sutter Lakeside grouped into the five-member Sutter Health West Bay Region, which also includes Sutter Pacific Medical Foundation, California Pacific Medical Center, Novato Community Hospital and Sutter Medical Center of Santa Rosa.
The “regionalization” process has been a controversial one – staff at Sutter Coast Hospital in Crescent City are fighting the effort there, which they say is really a transfer of ownership – because of their concerns for decreased services and loss of local control.
Southwick said Sutter Lakeside's partnership with Sutter hospitals in the West Bay Region is “invaluable.” She said it offers patients immediate access to the California Pacific Medical Center’s campuses, Sutter Medical Center of Santa Rosa or any affiliates that offer expertise when higher levels of care are required.
Last year, Sutter Lakeside laid off 10 percent of its staff, and closed its pain clinic on the hospital's main campus and the Upper Lake Community Health Clinic on the grounds of Upper Lake High School, as Lake County News has reported.
Those measures were taken in response to the hospital facing revenue reductions and more underinsured and uninsured patients, hospital officials said at the time.
Southwick said the hospital continues to deal with a very high number of uninsured patients. “We are doing an enormous amount of charity care.”
She added, “In the face of that we have to make really hard choices.”
Southwick said the Wellness Center closure is based on the need for Sutter Lakeside to allocate its resources the best it can, and make sure it is working within its skill sets.
She said the hospital's main goal is to sustain itself financially, which means they cannot fulfill every health care need in Lake County.
In 2012, the Sutter Lakeside Emergency Department had more than 19,157 visits. For comparison, she said Virginia Mason, an urban hospital in Seattle with 292 beds, had 22,186 emergency department visits last year.
“We are fully focused on allocating our resources towards doing what we do best: providing excellent basic medical care to the many people who need us in Lake County,” she said.
Southwick said the response from Wellness Center members has been marked by disappointment.
Over the last several years the hospital has focused strongly on prevention – an important approach for Lake County, which health studies have shown has poor health statistics and outcomes – with the Wellness Center being an outgrowth of that effort, she said.
“This is the end of an era,” Southwick said. “This isn't just a gym and we understand that, we really do.”
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