Promised transparency, delivered silence
Our hospital's vanishing accountability
Olympic Medical Center begged voters for a tax hike to avoid collapse—then stopped publishing financial reports and entered secret merger talks. The public paid up, but now it's being shut out. Where’s the transparency they promised?
Secrecy has its place. We expect it in the bathroom, the bedroom, and when voting. That’s why we have privacy glass, curtains, and secrecy envelopes. In those cases, if someone asks what you're doing, it’s entirely appropriate to say, “none of your business.”
But when you’re paying someone to work for you—whether it's a mechanic, an accountant, or your local government—secrecy isn’t acceptable. If you ask what’s being done with your money and you're told, “That’s a secret,” the natural response is outrage. And right now, Olympic Medical Center (OMC) is acting like your money is their secret.
OMC, the publicly funded hospital in Port Angeles with a satellite campus in Sequim, is not a private corporation. It is a public hospital district, funded in part through property taxes. That means it works for us, and it has a legal and ethical obligation to operate in the open.
Historically, OMC has posted detailed monthly financial reports in its public board meeting packets. These reports allow citizens to track the hospital’s financial health—how much money it has on hand, how it compares to previous years, and if the hospital is truly in crisis.
But here’s the problem: the last time one of those reports was published was November, which reflected data through the third quarter ending in September of last year—the hospital hasn’t shared its numbers for seven months.
A concerned citizen and subscriber to CC Watchdog recently filed a public records request asking for any monthly or year-to-date profit-and-loss statements dated after September 2024. The hospital’s response? None exist. “No responsive records have been found,” they said on April 24, 2025.
Let that sink in: after telling the public it was on the brink of collapse and asking for a tax increase, which County Commissioners passed a resolution to endorse, the hospital stopped reporting its finances a month after the levy passed.
This timing is not a coincidence.
OMC executives, including CEO Darryl Wolfe—who received a raise to $283,250 a year plus a $450 monthly car allowance—warned the public that without a property tax hike, the hospital may have to eliminate maternity services and possibly trauma care. They told us the hospital lost $28 million in 2023 and was on track to repeat that performance. The voters stepped up. They approved the tax hike. The hospital got the money.
And then? The financial statements disappeared.
To make matters worse, OMC is now in secretive negotiations with Jefferson Healthcare for a possible merger under a new nonprofit called Peninsula Health Alliance. According to Jefferson Healthcare Commissioner Matt Ready in a KONP article, the negotiations have been conducted out of public view—even from some commissioners—and could result in the formation of a “super board” to oversee both hospitals, giving Clallam County a built-in voting majority over regional healthcare decisions.
Ready called the process “contrary to the principles of public hospital governance.” He’s right.
OMC Board President Ann Henninger defended the secrecy as part of a “best practice approach” that requires confidentiality. She said no decisions have been made and insisted the board is “dedicated to transparency”—just not right now.
But here’s the truth: you can’t promise transparency, ask for more public money, and then retreat behind closed doors. That’s hypocrisy.
The public has a right to know how their hospital is doing financially—especially after being asked to bail it out. The public has a right to understand what structural changes are being discussed before those changes are made. And the public has a right to expect openness from a government-run institution it literally owns.
Instead, we’re told to trust the same leadership that hid the numbers and won’t say who’s at the negotiating table.
Once again, the public is being left out while being asked to pay up.
And that’s not transparency. That’s betrayal.
Fear mongering at its finest. Our entire county and state is a joke. Mail in voting has to go.
I'll say again, I don't understand how a publicly elected board can meet in secret and do deals behind the public's back without a violation of the Open Public Meetings Act. Or, is this another case of elected officials using highly paid bureaucrats to do all the work in secret as to not break any laws. Hmm, seems like we have a theme here.
OMC threatening to remove maternity care and Trauma care is a totally despicable fear tactic. Darryl should be ashamed. Those are actually the only things a rural hospital absolutely should provide. Scaring people to vote a certain way is the oldest political trick in the book. I'm growing tired of it.