By Mary-Justine Lanyon
At the special meeting of the Mountains Community Health board of directors on July 9, the directors heard from the consultants working with them on the feasibility of placing a bond measure on the Nov. 3 ballot. The plan was to vote on that placement at the July 30 board meeting.
However, at the July 30 meeting, President Gerry Hinkley said that he had been “spending time on the board’s consideration of whether to place a measure on the ballot. I had hoped to bring that to this meeting but we are not ready.”
Hinkley moved that agenda item to a special meeting the board would hold on Wednesday, Aug. 5.
“This is a big deal,” Hinkley said. “I want a presentation to the board on where we started and why we are where we are now. To give you more detail than we were prepared to give today. The information exists but not in the format we wanted.”
As part of the ongoing series of presentations by the hospital’s departments to the board, Steffanie Miller, the Facilities Department manager, introduced members of her team. Her presentation made it clear how critical her department is to the hospital’s operation.
The Facilities team is available onsite or on-call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, including holidays, Miller said. They focus on preventive maintenance and timely repairs to avoid disruptions in service to patients. They maintain the HVAC, electrical plumbing and medical gas systems to ensure continuous operation.
Each team members has a specialty, Miller said, but they are all cross trained and teach each other. During the construction, team members have been providing shuttle service for patients and staff who have to park at a distance from the hospital and the medical office building.
Facilities has taken over groundskeeping and security. They maintain the hospital-owned vehicles, inspecting them monthly.
“We are here to support the other departments,” Miller said. “About two years ago we started doing more preventative maintenance in-house. It was expensive to outsource. And this extends the lifespan of the equipment, which is very expensive.”
The Facilities team trains for disaster response and emergency preparedness. They inspect and test the generators and hold regular drills to ensure readiness. Their disaster recovery efforts focus on restoring healthcare operations and infrastructure after emergencies.
At the July 30 meeting, the board approved the appointment of John Moore as the new community representative to the board.
Editor’s note: The special meeting where the MCH board was to consider the bond measure took place after this issue went to press. We will report on their decision in the Aug. 13 issue.
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