Safety concerns addressed for old hospital building

Once the old Allen County Regional Hospital is abandoned, James Gentry will patrol it once or twice a day, including weekends, to check its operating systems and ensure the building is secure.
Gentry is a member of the hospital’s maintenance staff and will look after the older hospital in addition to his duties at the new hospital on North Kentucky. He will be paid an additional $400 a week, which will include compensation for any overtime Gentry might incur if problems surface.
Cameras, inside and out, will provide round-the-clock surveillance, Gentry told Allen County commissioners Tuesday morning. He also will confer with Sheriff Bryan Murphy and Iola Chief of Police Jared Warner to enlist local officers in security efforts.
Alert systems will be attached to boilers, pumps and other sensitive equipment that might fail if problems weren’t handled quickly, he said.
The clinic attached to the older hospital will remain in service after the new one goes on line, which prompted Gentry to recommend locking doors in a basement corridor connecting the two.
Commissioners are uncertain how long they will have to maintain the older hospital, and because of that will not move a back-up emergency generator that could be used by Public Works or at the courthouse.
“We don’t want to get in any hurry with it,” said Commission Chairman Dick Works.
To date, no one has shown encouraging interest in the hospital as a site for another enterprise, and commissioners have no thoughts about what to do with it.
The building is about 60 years old, but has been maintained and gives all indications of being rock-solid from a structural standpoint.

COMMISSIONERS eventually will confront what position to take in regard to concealed carry of firearms in the courthouse. Currently entrance signs alert visitors that firearms are prohibited.
With a new Kansas law, public buildings must be opened to firearms unless security measures, including metal detectors, are put in place to ensure those coming and going are unarmed.
An exception is that governing bodies may develop a plan to prohibit firearms and have four years to install detection devices.