RiverBend hospital is right use, right site

• Published in: The register-guard
• Main Author: GUEST VIEWPOINT By Carolyn Chambers and Gary LeClair, M.D. For The Register-Guard
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: Eugene, Or Gannett Co., Inc 16.12.2004
• ISSN: 0739-8557

We agree. The time has come for RiverBend construction to begin. Delays are costly. The new facility must be able to accommodate state-of-the-art technology. Inadequacies of the current facility have come into sharp and ominous focus in recent months. For several days each month, we have asked nearby hospitals to hold patients (that is, not transfer them to Sacred Heart for more advanced care) or send them to Portland because no appropriate beds were available. While we hope to make some space available soon by moving some services to the RiverBend Annex (former Sony plant), this will provide only short-term relief. Now, contrast this dense, urban development to the plan proposed by PeaceHealth: a hospital set back from the river 425 feet, more than five times the required distance; a 3-mile perimeter path around the entire site, including a bike path along the river; a stand of mature Douglas fir trees that will screen the hospital from the river for the benefit of boaters; views of nature from every patient room; a variety of bioswales to help purify any water run- off from the site; auto traffic kept more than 500 feet from the river; a 300-car underground parking facility to reduce surface parking; building up instead of out, saving precious land while keeping the roofline lower than the adjacent grove of trees, and 2,500 new trees and other plantings added to the site.