Officer positions were decided at the Wrangell Medical Center Board's monthly meeting Oct. 15. Present were Judy Ellen, Barb Conine, Bernie Massin, Cori Robinson and Dorothy Sweat, while among those teleconferencing in were members Woody Wilson and Terri Henson.
Wrangell Medical Center's executive Marla Sanger presided over the meeting to begin with, while the board elected its new officers following the Oct. 7 election.
Henson nominated herself to again serve as board president, which was unanimously approved. Massin was nominated and elected to be vice-president, Conine as treasurer, and newcomer Robinson as board secretary.
Following the election, Massin took over presiding the meeting from Sanger, since Henson was not there physically to do so.
Giving her report, Sanger told the board the hospital has been “very busy,” contending with staffing shortages among nurses and medical staff. On the administrative side, chief financial officer Dana Strong had also left the employ of WMC earlier this month.
Mary Jo Pullman of the hospital's human resources department agreed to step up to the position during the interim as the time for yearly reporting approaches.
“I feel pretty comfortable that we will get through this without a hitch,” Sanger said.
Pullman will receive some training that will help acquaint her with the new responsibilities. In the meantime, a replacement for Strong will be sought. Suitable candidates will be expected to handle not just the hospital's finances and reporting, but also those of Alaska Island Community Services.
Sitting in as the City and Borough Assembly's representative to the meeting, Stephen Prysunka expressed concern that the paring away of a professional position by joining those CFO responsibilities might adversely affect Wrangell.
“Every family really counts,” he told the board, asking that it keep the town's economic interests in mind when making staffing decisions.
During the meeting, Sanger had also recounted her presentation regarding the plan for a new hospital facility to the Borough Assembly at its Oct. 14 meeting. WMC staff are currently going over previous plans to build a new hospital, updating information and determining which aspects will have to be started anew.
The regional director of the United States Department of Agriculture and an engineer with the State of Alaska visited Wrangell this month in order to assist in that regard.
“They were very encouraging with respect to where we're at right now,” said Sanger. They had told her WMC has enough of the project's conceptual framework to begin the application process for a USDA loan.
However, she added there will be a number of steps to take before that can happen, such as conducting a feasibility study of the hospital's finances.
“There are many things we don't know yet,” she said, but “we have enough on paper to start moving forward.”
The hospital facilities will also require new fire alarm sensors; in a recent test, 20 of the center's 100 smoke detectors were not sensitive enough.
“The devices we have are fairly old,” Sanger said. She recommended replacing all of the devices with a sort that might be used eventually in a new facility, should the new hospital be built.
“There's been lots of different kinds of training,” Sanger added, with a refresher course being offered to staff this week on proper containment procedures in light of national ebola concerns.
A speech therapist will also be arriving, and she explained the hospital will be looking into acquiring an occupational therapist as well.
“There's some advantage to that,” Sanger reasoned, by expanding clinical services to cover a wider variety of needs.
Nurse Natalia Jabusch was announced as the hospital's employee of the month.
A possible quorum of the board will be present at a meet-and-greet tomorrow at 4 p.m. at the AICS clinic.
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