Ketchikan community members addressed the PeaceHealth Health Advisory Committee Tuesday night in a town hall meeting. The Ted Ferry Civic Center auditorium was packed with concerned community members and former employees — many of them speaking directly to PeaceHealth leadership about a toxic work environment at the hospital, poor working conditions and a lack of transparency.
Former director of long term care Pamela Standley says she was told to downsize the already short-staffed facility. When she said she wouldn’t, she was placed on a performance improvement plan and later fired.
“So what our residents got, in turn for that, was abuse, neglect, misappropriation of their property,” Standley said. “They were denied access to leaving the facility.”
Last month, patient Kathy Fitzgerald fell and hit her head on a five-gallon propane tank. She went to the hospital and staff found subarachnoid bleeding — or bleeding in the space between the brain and brain tissues. She says she was not confident in the care she was getting.
“I had to holler out the door to get a nurse to come in, and I had to ask for an ice pack for my head,” Fitzgerald said. “Thank goodness for me, and luckily for PeaceHealth, that bleed did not continue and my second CT scan was cleared.”
Fitzgerald said she was supposed to be getting regular neurological checks. But that didn’t happen until she asked about it several hours later.
There have been multiple accusations of employees being disciplined for raising concerns about unsafe conditions. Some say that’s made employees worry that if they speak up, they might lose their jobs.
Ketchikan Mayor Bob Sivertsen said he was speaking as a resident at the town hall. And he said what he has heard from other community members has been disturbing and concerning.
“It’s not the staff that’s the problem — it’s how we care for that staff,” Sivertsen said. “If we build a culture where the staff believes in the mission and they’re able to voice their opinions without retaliation, the whole community can be better for that.”
Many complaints have been shared on a new Facebook group, “Ketchikan Citizens Holding PeaceHealth Accountable,” which was created within the last week. By Wednesday night, there were over 300 members.
Michael Fitzgerald is one of the creators of that Facebook group. He worked at PeaceHealth for around 30 years. During that time, he said he saw management create a culture of silencing staff using fear of retaliation.
Fitzgerald retired last summer but has continued to volunteer running a men’s support group for people with cancer. Tuesday morning, Fitzgerald said he was let go as a volunteer from the group. He says he thinks it’s because of the concerns he has been raising on the Facebook page.
“When that kind of suppression of concerns happens, it creates an unsafe environment, and patients will be hurt,” Fitzgerald said. “Patients have been hurt.”
PeaceHealth Communications Director Kate Govaars told KRBD in an email that they have a policy against retaliation for raising concerns. And they listened to the community.
“We heard the comments in the town hall and see those as an opportunity to improve. We will be reviewing our internal processes and leader trainings to reaffirm our commitment to a culture of safety,” the email stated.
Other community members at the town hall pointed to a recent list of violations from the hospital’s long-term care facility, New Horizons Transitional Care. The state health department conducted a complaint survey earlier this year and found multiple instances of abuse and neglect.
PeaceHealth Chief Nursing Officer Jennifer Moyes spoke at the meeting and called these violations “isolated incidents.”
“What mattered most was not just how quickly we acted, but how deeply we learned from it,” Moyes said. “These experiences pushed us to strengthen our systems, support our caregivers, and make sure every member of our team has the knowledge and the tools before things happen.”
