Budget cuts hit King County healthcare hard

Berit Anderson

Berit Anderson Jul 7, 2025

Feb 6, 2018

Republish Article

You can republish articles in print or online. Simply copy the HTML below, which includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline, and credit to Cascade PBS. Republishing of the photos or videos embedded in an article can occur only if the photo or video is a copyright of Cascade Public Media ("CPM") and not of a third party. Photos and videos that are a copyright of CPM are not required to appear in the republished article, but if they are used, they must be embedded where they appear in the original article and must include the attribution to the CPM photographer.

You may reprint in any medium
You may edit only for tense and timeliness
If republishing in print you can edit for length if you follow our print republishing guidelines.
You may write your own headline
Include a byline and shirttail with credit and link to Cascade PBS
Include our tracking pixel
Remove if we ask

          <article>
            <header>
              <hgroup>
                <h1>Budget cuts hit King County healthcare hard</h1>
                <h2><p>Public Health — Seattle & King County, which is staring at a $30 million shortfall over the next two years, is proposing to close 40 percent of its public health clinics. The cuts will leave many hospital employees unemployed and significantly cut support services for pregnant women and infants, according to</p></h2>
              </hgroup>
               <p>By <a href="/author/berit-anderson-crosscut-com/">Berit Anderson</a></p> 
              <p><time datetime="2025-02-04T05:00:00-08:00">Feb 6, 2018</time></p>
            </header>
            <p>Public Health — Seattle &amp; King County, which is staring at a $30 million shortfall over the next two years, is proposing to close 40 percent of its public health clinics. The cuts will leave many hospital employees unemployed and significantly cut support services for pregnant women and infants, according to a <a href="http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2023834166_publichealthbudgetxml.html?ref=dev.cascadepbs.org">Seattle Times report</a>. Seattle’s Northgate and Columbia City neighborhoods will likely bear the brunt. Despite this grim financial landscape, Jim Vollendroff, King County’s top mental-health administrator, has pledged to end “psychiatric boarding”, the controversial practice of warehousing severely mentally ill patients in the E.R. until more appropriate facilities become available. Vollendroff remains optimistic even though instances of psychiatric boarding are up sharply since last year. — E.W.</p>
          </article>

Public Health — Seattle & King County, which is staring at a $30 million shortfall over the next two years, is proposing to close 40 percent of its public health clinics. The cuts will leave many hospital employees unemployed and significantly cut support services for pregnant women and infants, according to a Seattle Times report. Seattle’s Northgate and Columbia City neighborhoods will likely bear the brunt. Despite this grim financial landscape, Jim Vollendroff, King County’s top mental-health administrator, has pledged to end “psychiatric boarding”, the controversial practice of warehousing severely mentally ill patients in the E.R. until more appropriate facilities become available. Vollendroff remains optimistic even though instances of psychiatric boarding are up sharply since last year. — E.W.

Our members' donations make local journalism happen.

Support once for $1

Support monthly for $7

Cascade PBS Passport
Mossback members-only newsletter
Monthly Viewer Guide

Support monthly for $25

Invitation to quarterly news and original programming video conference
Annual in-person meet-up with news & programming teams
Special event perks (reduced price or free tickets, cocktails, etc.)

Continue

By Berit Anderson

Berit Anderson was Managing Editor at Crosscut, following tech, culture, media and politics. She founded Crosscut's Community Idea Lab.   Previously community manager of the Tribune Company’