Hospital says comments mostly back reassignment surgeries

PULLMAN - After asking for public comment, the Pullman Regional Hospital Board of Commissioners has received overwhelming support for providing gender reassignment surgeries.

During a public comment period that ran June 8-20, the hospital received 2,074 comments expressing support for the procedures and 383 comments opposed. Sixty-five comments were determined to be neutral.

The board briefly discussed the results at their monthly meeting Wednesday night, but didn't make any decisions regarding the future of such procedures at the hospital. In fact, the board had many unanswered questions.

"How much weight are we giving this information?" Commissioner Margaret Werre asked of the public comments.

"I'm not sure we have weighted it," Board President Patricia Grantham replied. "This is part of the decision-making process."

"Have we come up with a cost of what we will be benefiting from?" Werre asked.

Grantham said cost benefits have yet to be determined.

Commissioner Michael Murphy expressed some concern about taking up the surgeries.

Murphy said Dr. Geoff Stiller, a board-certified surgeon who has been pursuing advanced training for more than a year and wants to get enough experience to perform gender reassignment surgeries independently, may leave the hospital once his training is complete.

Stiller performed two gender reassignment surgeries in June at the hospital under the supervision of two physicians with previous experience in the specialty.

In order for Stiller to perform the surgeries independently, he would need to complete a handful more under supervision and apply for privileges to conduct the surgeries.

"It's possible that he would never apply for privileges here," Murphy said. "He might do his required number of cases and never complete the application here; until he makes a complete application here we can't move forward."

Hospital CEO Scott Adams told the Lewiston Tribune that even if Stiller leaves before his training is complete that's not a determining factor as to whether the surgeries will be offered in the future.

"We could adopt a position prior to any application being presented," Adams said.

Regardless, the hospital is building an understanding of the reassignment surgeries and still may provide the surgeries if Stiller does elect to leave, he said.

While there is overwhelming support from the community on gender reassignment surgeries, which Adams recognizes, he said that support will not determine the hospital's decision on whether to allow them.

Adams said now the hospital is tasked with examining the effect the surgeries will have on the hospital. He said financial consideration, service enhancements and surgery room and patient bed capacity at the hospital all need to be considered before that decision is made.

The public comments on gender reassignment surgeries came through a number of avenues.

There were two electronic petitions. One from Jeff Dodge in support of the surgeries tallied 1,814 signatures. The other electronic petition from Christ Church gained 273 signatures opposed to the surgeries, while a handwritten petition from the Evangelical Free Church gained another 33 signatures in opposition.

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Babcock may be contacted at jbabcock@lmtribune.com or at (208) 848-2275.