Providence hospitals have grown with Everett community

Published 1:30 am Saturday, July 30, 2022

In 1983, my husband Bob and I packed our belongings and drove north from San Diego to Everett with the crazy idea of starting a baseball team and earning our living selling tickets and popcorn. Forty years later we’re still here looking back with gratitude on our Giants and AquaSox years and the community that let Everett baseball grow and thrive.

In this moment, however, I’d like to recognize another community asset that delivers far more than nine innings of entertainment: our hospital, Providence Regional Medical Center Everett, open 24/7 to the community with world-class caregivers, programs and equipment.

The history of Everett health care is replete with Field of Dreams examples of “If you build it, they will come”: buildings constructed, specialties added, volumes increased since General Hospital began in 1894 and Providence in 1905. Most recently, the Cymbaluk Tower opened expanding opportunities for enhancements in heart, cancer, neurology, trauma care and more.

I grew up in a Missouri town similar in size to Everett with a physician father who carried his black bag to patient homes. What he did and how he did it has forever intrigued and inspired me. I knew that wherever I went in life, I would want to support health care. Now I’m in Everett, and that place is Providence.

Physician and author Dr. Mark Hyman sagely noted that the power of community to create health is far greater than any physician, clinic or hospital. You, me, all of us. We’re the community that can make that happen.

Margaret and Bob Bavasi

Everett