After 20 years, Marcia Scott has retired as administrator at the Haines Health Clinic. Scott started as a receptionist in 1994, when the non-profit Lynn Canal Medical Center employed two doctors, two office staff and three nurses.
“There have been some pretty extraordinary changes since then,” Scott said of the clinic, which currently employs 35 through its pharmacy, laboratory services, dental, and behavioral health offices.
The Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium (SEARHC) took over Lynn Canal Medical in 1998. “It (had been) a private non-profit run by a board of directors,” she said, “and they had some financial difficulties by that point. But it was the main source of healthcare for the community.”
Scott managed an improved billing system for SEARHC, a tribal non-profit based in Juneau. She spent the last 11 years as clinic administrator, responsible for both the budget and the clinic’s medical direction.
“People always had billing concerns and I tried to find an answer to them,” she said. “We had the highest patient satisfaction rating in the consortium.”
SEARHC has renovated the clinic five times since 1998, including a recent expansion of X-ray facilities. Three full-time physicians and six nurses staff the clinic.
While Scott has plenty of institutional change to look back on, it’s the people who she remembers. “It takes a team to accomplish anything. I was fortunate to work with the people I did.”
One of those people was Eric Gettis, SEARHC president. “Marcia is a wonderful woman,” he said, “and has been a great asset to the health center. She’s a kind, good-spirited woman of Southeast. Very well liked.”
Scott finished work Oct. 16. Four days later she was in Maui, and returned just before Christmas. “I never used to come to town on the weekends,” said Scott, who lives at 32 Mile and drove to Haines every weekday for 20 years. “Now that I’m retired I’m more likely to come in for community events.”
A new clinic administrator, Mary Crann, started work on Dec. 15. “She’s a nurse by training,” said Gettis. “As people get a chance to meet her, I think they’ll find that she’s also a good-hearted woman, a hard worker. The physicians and I think she’ll do a good job leading that practice.”