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Show Hospital Board Recommendation Given to County; Talks Planned The Grand County Commission Commis-sion now has before it a recommendation rec-ommendation from tho Grand County Hospital Board, calling call-ing for the immediate remodeling remod-eling of the east wing of the hospital into a ten-bed nursing nurs-ing home. A lengthy agenda last Monday Mon-day prevented the Commission Commis-sion from taking any action cn the recommendation, but Commission Chairman Mars Pope stated that it would probably pro-bably be discussed at the next regular meeting. The recommendation, which came about as a result of a Hospital Boapd meeting last Thursday, recommends that the infrequently - used east wing be converted into a nursing home; that families of patients admitted there be informed that in the event the space is ever needed for general hospital use, tlat they will have to vacate; mat the basic fee for nursing home patients be set at $500 per month; and that the nursing staff of the general hospital portion of the facility be in creased by one person per shift to insure an attendant, on duty in the new nursery at all times. The recommendation by the Board was passed with a split vote folowing a lengthy discussion Thursday. Members Mem-bers stated following the meeting that even though the change recommended at the hospital would probably do little better than break even, it would bring about fuller utilization of the hospital facility, fa-cility, and would fill a need that obviously exists in thu community. "Smce the remodeling re-modeling cost is relatively low (between $5 and $10 thousand) thou-sand) we felt we should move in this direction," a member of the Board staled. County Commission Chairman Chair-man Mars Pope stated this week that although the matter mat-ter would be discussed at the next Commission meeting, he personally felt that the matter mat-ter required more study bo-fore bo-fore a decision is reached. "In a facility of this size the cost per patient is often too high," Mr. Pope stated. He went on to indicate that the Commission wanted to "get some public opinion" before be-fore making a decision. "I have had a number of people call me, both for and against, and we want to hear from a number of people before deciding," de-ciding," he said. "If there is too much public pressuie against the measure, we probably pro-bably won't want to do it." Hospital Administrator J. Kay Hawks, at last Thursday's Thurs-day's Board meeting, presented pre-sented his estimates of cost for operating the new facility. facil-ity. "If we operated with all ten beds full," he said, "$500 per month should be sufficient to allow the wing to operate in the black, if we don't figure fig-ure in depreciation." He also presented to the Board a list of operating costs experienced by a number oi community hospitals in Utah which are also operating nursing nur-sing homes. The motion to recommend moving forward on the project pro-ject was made by member Sam Taylor, and passed by a vote of two to one, with one member absent. |