OAK HARBOR – Emergency rooms in Coupeville and Anacortes are preparing to treat hundreds more patients next year because of the anticipated closure of Naval Hospital Oak Harbor’s 39-year-old emergency room.

Hospital officials announced Wednesday that the emergency room will be replaced with an urgent care clinic.

The change, scheduled for Oct. 1, has the potential to affect about 31,000 people with military connections who live in the area and are eligible to use the hospital.

The urgent care clinic will not be open 24 hours a day like the emergency room was, said Kim Martin, public affairs officer for Whidbey Island Naval Air Station.

Moreover, the clinic will not treat people with life-threatening injuries. They will be directed to hospitals miles away in Coupeville, Anacortes or Mount Vernon.

“As a retired military guy, I’m sorry to see it because it’s another action that is taking away a benefit that the government has promised,” said Jim Campbell, a retired Navy chief petty officer and an Oak Harbor City Councilman.

Martin said the changes will not have a major impact on patients.

The emergency room currently stabilizes and transfers people with life-threatening injuries, but does not treat them, she said.

Around 3 percent of the 22,170 people who sought treatment at the emergency room last year arrived with life-threatening conditions, Martin said. The emergency room transferred 266 patients to other hospitals for more intensive care.

“Ambulances don’t bring people onto this base for emergency care,” she said. “Even if you were a Navy person, they wouldn’t bring you here. That’s just not their protocol. … This place has never actually operated as an emergency room with an ICU.”

However, the switch is causing concern in Oak Harbor.

Around 8,000 active duty military personnel, along with 13,000 family members and 10,000 retirees, live in the area and are eligible to use hospital, Martin said.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said that she has requested a briefing on the action.

“I am concerned that this decision could impact the level of quality care available to Whidbey Island service members and their families,” she said.

Murray said she wants to hear from base officials about “how they will continue to ensure the quality care our service members deserve.”

The urgent care clinic is scheduled to operate from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. on weekdays and from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on weekends.

Martin said the hospital will save money by closing the clinic during the hours the emergency room was least used.

Navy patients who need to be treated at an emergency room will most likely end up at one of three area hospitals: Whidbey General Hospital in Coupeville, Island Hospital in Anacortes or Skagit Valley Hospital in Mount Vernon.

“There may be three to four patients a day” that have to be taken to area hospitals because of the change, said Dr. Roger Case, president of Whidbey General’s board.

Small Navy hospitals across the nation are making changes similar those being made at the Oak Harbor facility, he said, because they aren’t operating as fully operational emergency rooms.

“They don’t have the staff nor the resources to do that,” said Case, who worked at Naval Hospital Oak Harbor from 1970 to 1983.

Vince Oliver, Island Hospital’s chief executive, said he first learned of plans to close Naval Hospital Oak Harbor earlier this week from the hospital’s commanding officer.

Oliver said he was surprised by the news.

“NAS Whidbey is a base that will be here for quite some time,” he said. “The Prowler community is being updated. New people are being assigned to the base. It seemed a little odd that there was a critical service that they’re downsizing.”

Oliver said it’s too early to know what effect the closing will have on his hospital’s emergency room, but some additional patients are expected.

Island Hospital’s emergency room will have plenty of space to treat any patients that would have been treated by the Navy hospital, Oliver said.

Reporter Kaitlin Manry: 425-339-3292 or kmanry@heraldnet.com.