After announcing this summer an intention to reevaluate the services provided in the Verde Valley, Northern Arizona Healthcare wrote in a Thursday, Oct. 15 press release that they would be making no major changes to their Sedona facility, for at least the next five years.
“The Sedona campus opened the emergency department 24 years ago in 1996. During that time, we have received feedback from residents within the community expressing the great satisfaction with the care you or a loved one received during your time of need,” NAH officials wrote. “In response to those discussions, we are making a commitment to continue to operate the Sedona Emergency Department for at least five years, recognizing that Northern Arizona Healthcare periodically reviews its services throughout the system. Continuing a positive partnership with the city of Sedona is vital, and we look forward to continued collaboration for your healthcare and wellness needs.”
The potential change in the Sedona location had been met with fierce backlash, with members of the community expressing concern that the emergency services they rely on would be leaving. Larson Newspapers received numerous of Letters to the Editor from concerned citizens.
“Is NAH a rural community provider?,” Sedona resident Carol S. Ray wrote in a letter on June 12. “Is NAH required to meet the needs of the rural patients? Does NAH get extra funding for that very reason? Is NAH sitting on a huge pot of money as a nonprofit hospital? This seems a very foolish decision that demands more transparency to the community to justify the process of reducing medical care to an area that probably produces more financial income for the hospital than most of the other areas it serves.”
“It’s all about the money,” Sedona resident Doug Bowen wrote in a letter June 5. “Northern Arizona Healthcare should have been planning for the future knowing that the funding from large wealthy donors would end. Also, the money that these donors gave over the last several decades was not for NAH to change the facility to meet a financial need. It was to supply our city with an emergency facility. I am sure if some of these large donors were alive today they would be pulling funds from NAH if they knew what was planned.”
“It appears to me by reading [NAH President and CEO Flo] Spyrow’s letter that NAH is doubling down on their sizeable investment in breast care and therefore can no longer tolerate the losses from the Emergency Room” wrote Dr. Neil Singer, an internist a member of the medical staff at Verde Valley Medical Center since 1996, in a Guest Perspective on June 10. “NAH is making a choice of using their limited resources for either expanding the breast care center or continuation of emergency services in Sedona.”
“The reason that you don’t see an outpouring of outrage by physicians about the possible closure of the ER in Sedona is because those employed physicians are contractually prohibited from publicly voicing opposition to NAH,” Singer wrote a Guest Perspective on Oct. 2. “NAH administrators are refusing to release their numbers and to speak seriously about closing the Sedona ER because they say closure is off the table.
“It is off the table because NAH first needs to develop public support and obtain money from the public for their new projects that will replace the ER — the Breast Cancer Center and perhaps a wellness center — before they anger the community again with closing the ER.”
In July, facing these concerns, NAH administrators announced that any decisions about the future of the Sedona facility would be delayed until after the end of the COVID-19 crisis, but this latest announcement gives a firm timeline.
“There are no anticipated changes,” NAH Chief of Strategy Jannienne Jones-Verse said on a video call with Larson Newspapers the morning of the announcement. “We can’t foretell the future, [but] as we look at what we’re able to provide and the services that we offer today, barring circumstances we can’t think of, yes, we’re going to continue operating the emergency department at the level that we are today. We are not anticipating changes.”
“Qualified staffing, diagnostics, transport services and coordination of your care with other NAH entities will continue 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” the press release reads. “As you have been pleased with the service at the Sedona Emergency Department, we will continue to employ physicians in this Sedona ED.”
