I read with interest and considerable surprise the announcement by a hospital from Tacoma that kidney dialysis was now available on this side of the Narrows (May 2004, page 33).

In fact, state of the art dialysis has been available to our neighbors in Kitsap, North Mason, East Jefferson, and Clallam Counties since the early 1980’s! The Olympic Peninsula Kidney Center (OPKC) has been operating in Bremerton since that time and has served thousands of end stage renal disease (ESRD) patients for the past two decades. A few years ago, we opened a satellite facility in Port Orchard and, in few months, we hope to begin construction on a second satellite in the North Kitsap area.

OPKC is a non-profit organization opened and operated by a volunteer group of our community members who were concerned about the distances ESRD patients were forced to travel to receive dialysis. After an initial capital campaign that generated $100,000 in donations from ordinary citizens in Kitsap County, the OPKC opened to those patients.

As a non-profit, the OPKC Board of volunteer Directors makes sure the facility is operated for the benefit of its patients and that any surpluses go back into the community. (For example, recently OPKC established a Nursing Scholarship at Olympic College, which is named in honor of Wanda Mosbarger, a founding member of the OPKC Board and a well-known community activist and volunteer).

Competition is good, but they shouldn’t try to leave the impression that they were here first.

Robert Schneidler
Past Chairman of the Board and
Member of the Board of Directors
Olympic Peninsula Kidney Center