Valley Medical Center in Renton continues down a winding, uncertain road as clinics are closed down, Medicaid funding is denied and then approved, and a lawsuit against the hospital is filed and then denied by a judge.
Following a May 12 announcement of Valley’s closing of two inpatient units, five clinics and the consolidation of two clinics in South King County by the end of June, the District Healthcare System Board of Trustees held a special meeting on June 3 to discuss the late May decision from the federal government to approve Washington state’s Medicaid funding for the calendar year 2025 — which had been originally denied in January, leading to over 100 non-union layoffs a few months earlier in March.
On June 23, the Healthcare Workers’ Union (SEIU Healthcare 1199NW) filed a lawsuit with King County Superior Court against Valley, seeking an “injunctive relief and enforcement of the Board of Trustees’ motion to pause layoffs and closures.” One of the lawsuit’s claims was that the closure of some of Valley’s clinics were “unlawful.”
A few days later on June 26, a declaration to the Superior Court from Valley CEO and CFO Jeannine Grinnell said that after the federal funds had finally been approved in late May, Valley “management and its commissioners decided it would be appropriate to pause, where feasible,” the May 12 layoffs.
Grinnell declared that this was done so that Valley “could fully consider whether changes to our cost-cutting plan were feasible and appropriate in light of the impending release of [Washington state’s Medicaid Hospital Directed Payment Program] funds, as well as the many financial uncertainties and hazards that continued to loom.”
In the declaration, Grinnell talked about the June 3 special meeting.
“At that meeting, and with the full support of the Board of Commissioners, I requested that the Board vote to pause our then ongoing cost-containment strategies, so we could fully analyze the impact of the release of the [Direct Payment Program] funds. At that meeting the Board voted to pause ‘where feasible’ the cost containment steps we were taking,” Grinnell said.
On June 26, the Superior Court denied the SEIU’s motion for the temporary restraining order.
Prior to Valley’s 2025 financial uncertainties and layoffs, the Valley Board of Commissioners decided to end its “strategic alliance” with UW Medicine in December 2024. The contract will officially cease on Dec. 31, 2026.
Talk to us
Please share your story tips by emailing editor@kentreporter.com.
To share your opinion for publication, submit a letter through our website https://www.kentreporter.com/submit-letter/. Include your name, address and daytime phone number. (We’ll only publish your name and hometown.) Please keep letters to 300 words or less.
