The Wrangell Borough Assembly met last Tuesday night to hear an update on the transition of the Wrangell Medical Center to SEARHC control. The regional healthcare consortium took over the medical center late last year and is in the process of building a new hospital in Wrangell.
In the meantime, the WMC will be run by SEARHC until the new hospital is ready to receive patients, reportedly in 2021. Dan Neumeister, with SEARHC, said the transition has been very smooth for the hospital’s employees. There have also been some technological and infrastructural upgrades to the hospital. Some of these upgrades include IT improvements, new clocks, telephone systems and computers. The most recent upgrades, he said, were some generator transfer switches that were installed this past weekend.
Most of these upgrades, he added, are to ensure the hospital can continue functioning while the new hospital is built over the next two years.
“Currently, about $440,000 investments are currently being made,” said Neumeister.
Neumeister also said that the hospital met its budget after the first month of SEARHC management. $130,000 has already been transferred back to the city, he said, from outstanding legacy bank accounts.
They are anticipating about another $375,000 will be available to return to the city within six to eight months.
As for the new hospital, Neumeister said that things are moving fairly smoothly. They are on track to stay within five percent of their budget for the new facility, he said.
Some big requests for contractors will be going out in February, he was told by Wold Architects. Start time for construction is planned for April or May, and the move from the medical center to the new hospital is planned for December of 2020.
“As long as we don’t have the mother of all snowstorms for a long time, we’ll be okay,” he said.
During the meeting, the assembly also approved of a list of legislative priorities for the year 2019. These priorities listed are of projects and items that the assembly felt are important to Wrangell, and which require action above the local government level. Some of the legislative priorities include researching the feasibility of bringing a boarding school to Wrangell, reinstatement/filling of local state positions like a public nurse, magistrate, and child welfare caseworker. Other priorities listed include an emergency generator for the airport.
The assembly also approved of a resolution creating a “special investment committee” to explore potential investment opportunities for the borough.
Assembly members Anne Morrison and Jim DeBord volunteered to sit on this committee.
The next regular assembly meeting will be on Jan. 22.
Another meeting, scheduled for Feb. 12, has been cancelled, and another meeting in April was rescheduled for April 30. During this meeting, the assembly also agreed to hold a special meeting on Friday, Jan. 11 to discuss the borough’s insurance policies in regards to the Wrangell Medical Center.
Reader Comments(0)