East Washingtonian - Your Hometown News Source

The Hospital District would like to take the next few weeks to begin addressing some of the common questions and concerns we hear from community members. “So why haven’t we moved the clinic up to the hospital building? Wouldn’t that save money in maintenance and other overhead costs?”

Moving the clinic up to the hospital facility is something that has been looked at in depth on multiple occasions. We do feel that it would provide benefit to the District through some cost savings and improved continuity of our services. Unfortunately, we have not been able to do this yet. The first issue is that the original hospital building is under a moratorium by the state due to insufficient electrical infrastructure. Until we are able to perform the needed upgrades to that system, the hospital is not allowed to add anything that would draw electrical current.

The entire electrical project is estimated to cost $1.6 million. We have been working hard at applying for grants to help fund the project. The hospital was awarded a legislative grant in 2019 that should allow us to complete at least a small portion of the project. We will continue to look for funding sources.

There is a second issue that came up as plans were sent through the approval process with the state. The clinic would have to maintain all of if its own space even at the hospital, meaning it would still have to have a separate reception, waiting area, and completely separate clinical space. The only feasible plans for fitting the clinic in the hospital building would have required a small portion of hallway to be shared with the Emergency Department. Because of this, our plans were denied.

We have not given up on the idea entirely but now understand that moving the clinic to the hospital facility will take significant work for remodeling or constructing the proper space.

The Hospital District hopes this has helped to clear up any questions or confusion that may have existed around this issue. We would invite you to please contact us if you have further questions about moving the clinic or other questions that could be addressed in this column. Thank you for your continued support of Garfield County Hospital District!