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Wellness Center to Close
May 12, 2009
Pacific Lutheran University announced on May 11 that it will close the Wellness Center it has operated for 23 years from its East Campus facility at 121st and Pacific in Parkland on August 11, 2009.
“We have met with community health organizations in the Puget Sound region in an intensive, ongoing effort to find a new supporter or owner for the primary health care clinic,” said Terry Miller, Dean of PLU’s School of Nursing, “but everyone is facing the same fiscal and staffing challenges that we confront. We will continue to look for other options, but we are obliged to give a 90-day notice of the clinic’s closure to our partners and patients so that they might find alternative service providers.”
Dean Miller said that rising demand and shrinking public funding for the health and dental services provided to the public through the Wellness Center has become unsustainable. “Health care services are being covered by transfers from the university’s core business of academic instruction and student services. Larger community health care organizations have a greater ability to successfully staff and manage clinics of this kind,” he said. “PLU has offered its facility and operations to them in an effort to sustain the university’s association with this important dimension of community service.” Miller stated, “We have found interest by others, but it has not led to a transfer of the Wellness Center to new ownership.”
There are two other community health centers within blocks of PLU’s Wellness Center, one north and the other south of East Campus.
For further information, call: Dean Terry Miller (253-535-7674) or Greg Brewis, Executive Director of University Communications (253-535-8565).
Dean Miller said that rising demand and shrinking public funding for the health and dental services provided to the public through the Wellness Center has become unsustainable. “Health care services are being covered by transfers from the university’s core business of academic instruction and student services. Larger community health care organizations have a greater ability to successfully staff and manage clinics of this kind,” he said. “PLU has offered its facility and operations to them in an effort to sustain the university’s association with this important dimension of community service.” Miller stated, “We have found interest by others, but it has not led to a transfer of the Wellness Center to new ownership.”
There are two other community health centers within blocks of PLU’s Wellness Center, one north and the other south of East Campus.
For further information, call: Dean Terry Miller (253-535-7674) or Greg Brewis, Executive Director of University Communications (253-535-8565).