After a 35-year relationship with the Eugene Emergency Physicians, a group of local physicians and position associates, PeaceHealth executives announced plans to outsource emergency care. This marks the latest development in a series of haphazard decisions taken by the executive board, with one of the most notable examples being the sudden closure of PeaceHealth Sacred Heart Medical Center University District, which left nearly 200,000 people without a hospital or emergency room in Eugene.

363 physicians cast votes in favor of retaining Eugene Emergency Physicians at PeaceHealth Lane County hospitals, an overwhelming majority of the physicians on staff. The Oregon Chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians, the American Academy of Emergency Medicine, the Oregon Nurses Association and nearly all local physicians’ groups joined to critique this sudden change in leadership.

“This is a 35-year relationship that’s been productive and healthy. There’s been no warning. PeaceHealth decided to hire this national corporate medical group with very little notice or plan on how to shift,” ONA spokesperson Kevin Mealy said.

ONA nurses at PeaceHealth RiverBend recently held a vote of no confidence, with more than 93% voting that they have “no confidence” in PeaceHealth’s Chief Hospital Executive Jim McGovern, M.D., and Chief Medical Officer, Kim Ruscher, M.D., M.P.H., and 98% voting to reverse the decision to outsource emergency medical care. ONA nurses have also begun circulating a petition, aiming to “save our ER docs.”

“The lack of transparency in this decision-making process is what’s so concerning,” Mealy said. “PeaceHealth CEO Jim McGovern has been clear that it wasn’t a financial decision — which makes it even more confusing as to why they’re seeking this divorce from local doctors who have done a phenomenal job.”

Kylie Shorack, an ONA member and an emergency room nurse at the PeaceHealth RiverBend, added to the state of fear and uncertainty that many medical workers are facing right now.

“We have our concerns about working with Apollo and their physicians,” Shorack said. “They have not made conscious efforts to meet the nursing staff — we’ve had one meeting with them dancing around questions — there hasn’t been any forward progress that I’ve seen.”

After the closure of Eugene’s University District Hospital, emergency room nurses and physicians at RiverBend have noted an increase in patient volume. Eugene’s only hospital is currently PeaceHealth RiverBend, and notably the only level two trauma center from Crescent City, California, to Corvallis, Oregon.

Shorack has been an ER nurse for 14 years and was a technician for four years before that. She explained that communication and built relationships between nurses and physicians in the ER are crucial and can be lifesaving.

“Now (there’s) a whole group of doctors that don’t even live here and don’t understand our melting pot of a community,” Shorack said. “They don’t understand demographically how Oregon is and what kind of traumas and sicknesses that brings in … it’s going to be difficult to establish that rapport with the physicians, especially when it already feels like there’s no effort to (meet) with us.”

The doctors who worked at the hospital were deeply embedded in our community, with many volunteering with CAHOOTS and White Bird Clinic, and some holding teaching positions at OHSU or the Western University Clinic. ApolloMD’s model is expected to be based on traveling physicians, according to Mealy, who are historically more expensive than the current model.

“We deserve local healthcare from people who live in the community, who know the community and care about the community,” Mealy said