Trustees still negotiating land deals for hospital
The night almost ended on a hopeful note.
At a hastily arranged telephone conference with Eldon Strickler, Colony, hospital trustees talked for the better part of an hour Tuesday evening in negotiations to purchase his land.
When all was said and done, Strickler’s answer was still no, he is not willing to accept their price for his 3.1 acres needed for the medical campus along U.S. 54 on the east side of town.
Details of the negotiations were not made public. No amounts were disclosed.
Alan Weber, counselor for trustees, said he would begin the paperwork necessary for eminent domain to be filed against Strickler, who remains the lone holdout among eight landowners who own the properties where the county plans to build the new Allen County Hospital.
Weber said he expected to file papers against Strickler Thursday.
Trustees had offered an average of $35,600 per acre at the 17-acre site.
Agreed-to purchase prices include: $86,000 to Jack McFadden, $105,000 to Rick Michael, $36,000 to Bob Walden, $142,000 to Don and Ella Mae Britt, and $65,000 to Jay, Lou, Joe and Dwayne O’Brien. Negotiations with property owner Gerald Lilly “are close,” Weber said.
Iola Medical Developers, Inc., have agreed to donate their .72 acres to the new hospital.
PICKING UP from last week’s decision to build the new hospital facility on East Street, trustees were quick to accept the addition of an outpatient physicians’ clinic to the medical campus. Representatives from Iola Medical Developers assured trustees that they want to work “in concert” with the hospital on the design of the clinic which would serve as offices and examination rooms for out-of-town specialists who come to Iola on a regular basis.
Harry Lee, chairman of the trustees, stressed that the new clinic was not perceived as an offshoot of The Family Physicians, an Iola practice at 1408 East St., but would also serve the patients of Drs. Earl Walter and Wes Stone of Iola Family Practice, whose office is at 401 S. Washington.
“You represent a large part of the medical community,” Lee told those with The Family Physicians, “But you’re not the entire medical community. We need this to be a county team to create this clinic,” Lee said.
Glen Singer, a physician with The Family Physicians, agreed, saying more parties involved in bringing the clinic to fruition would benefit the entire community. The physicians and pharmacists associated with the Iola Medical Developers have agreed to help the hospital raise the money, along with Iola Industries, for what is expected to be a $1.5 million facility.
NOT EVERYONE was happy with last week’s decision to locate the hospital back in town.
Peggy Marple, who works in the hospital’s billing department, read a letter she had written to trustees, saying they had been “manipulated by a few businessmen with their own obvious agenda.”
The site, Marple said, also has odor issues.
“Besides getting the smell from the dairy, which we do get in this direction, plus the semis that would be coming and going on the east side from Jump Start (Travel Center), and the city sewage on the south, that is sometimes very offensive, I am at a loss as to the concern for smells from the dairy. Also, if none of you have looked at the east end of town, it is not exactly the most [a]esthetically pleasing.”
Marple said she didn’t think improving the delinquent site would “promote growth in that area or [for] the hospital.” She also was critical of the trustees’ “quick vote” on the issue.
Trustees did not react to Marple’s statements. They have been holding open meetings for the past five months, trying to determine the best location for the facility.
WHEN IT COMES to the hospital’s design, Dr. Brian Wolfe said he hopes infection control will be considered. Wolfe said the world is entering a “post-antibiotic era” where an increasing number of new germs are not responding to current antibiotics.
Nich Lohman, hospital pharmacist, said the development of new antibiotics to fight new strains “is almost nil.”
“It takes 10-15 years to develop a new antibiotic, while new germs can replicate in as little as six months,” Lohman said. “We’re going to go back to the Dark Ages of when you cut yourself on a tin can you can die of the infection.”
To combat this “superbug epidemic,” hospitals are having to reassess their infection-control measures, including “washing down patients with antiseptics every day and cleaning the surfaces in patients’ rooms, down to the smallest joints and nooks on monitors and computers, as frequently as every 12 hours,” according to the handout Wolfe distributed.
“It behooves us as we enter this post-antibiotic era to recognize that new housekeeping measures are critical to our ability to keep our patients safe,” Wolfe said.
THE LAYOUT of the hospital on the 17-acre site was discussed. Steve Lewallen, president of Health Facilities Group, architects of the hospital, proposed putting the hospital north of Monroe Street, especially if a new clinic for veterans materializes. The suggestion surprised trustees.
At next week’s meeting, architects with HFG will bring a number of possible scenarios for the medical complex.
