Ron Baker, new administrator of Allen County Hospital, is a busy man. IN RESPONSE to a query, Baker said having ambulance service operated from the new hospital was not particularly wise financially, even though the hospital usually is the destination for an ambulance run. COMMISSIONERS approved three expenditures.
“June 1 is D-Day,” he told Allen County commissioners Tuesday, in his first formal meeting with them.
“That’s break-away day from HCA (Hospital Corporation of America),” which has managed the hospital under a lease agreement with the county, but will be excused when the county takes the reins through its board of trustees.
Alan Weber, county counselor, told commissioners $5 million in operating capital that was part of the original issue would be in place at Community National Bank coincidental to the hospital’s management changeover.
With the new management in place, the hospital won’t have income of consequence for more than a month. Essentially, he said money would be requested as needed.
“We’re trying to make the switch for employees as seamless as possible,” Baker said, and that benefits in a new package may be more favorable than what they had with HCA.
Baker said the switch has entailed a multitude of things, from reworking benefit plans for employees, preparing to physically move from the hospital’s 60-year home on East Madison to new quarters on North Kentucky and considering what to do with the old building.
“We’re also working with Via Christi” to keep the office of Drs. Earl Walter and Wesley Stone, now at 401 S. Washington, and staff in place, he said.
Via Christi announced last month it would close the Iola office May 31. Walter said his retirement might be imminent.
As for the existing hospital, Baker said he had no definite idea for what might become of it and asked commissioners Dick Works and Jim Talkington if they did; Tom Williams was not at the meeting. None had a proposal.
“It may be built like the Rock of Gibraltar,” Baker said, but to have renovated it to meet today’s medical needs was a circumstance he had seen elsewhere — cost of upgrade would be greater than “moving to the edge of town and building new.”
Offhand ideas that have come his way include such things as converting the hospital to a prison — probably not a good fit in a residential area — as well as redoing its interior for apartments and even tearing it down for a park.
“If anyone has any brilliant idea of what to do with the hospital, let us know,” said Works.
He explained having ambulance dispatch from the hospital “would leave federal (Medicare) dollars on the table. Allocating overhead expenses to an ambulance department, would reduce Medicare reimbursement” for the hospital.
John Becannon’s Custom Borders, LaHarpe, will install concrete borders around about four feet of mulch and foliage that rings the recently repainted bandstand on the courthouse lawn. Becannon’s bid was $641.25 for about 95 feet of border.
Public Works Department will purchase a 36-foot-long aluminized pipe, 78 inches in diameter, to carry a stream under a county road a mile southeast of Iola. Welborn Sales, Salina, had the lower bid at $3,204.
Angie Murphy, dispatch director, was given go-ahead to spend $1,250 with Console Cleaning Specialists, Chehalis, Wash. The company will deep clean consoles, other computer equipment and furniture at the dispatch center, 410 N. State St., with devices that are quiet and environmentally friendly. A wall also will be removed as part of the bid.
June 1 D-Day for hospital
