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Read comments (13)The hospital, which was sold by the county several years ago, will move out this summer, leaving its current, county-owned building vacant. Community Health Systems, which owns the hospital, is working with the county on a checklist for securing the building.
A few areas of the building will still be used to support the adjoining Bedford County Nursing Home, which is still county-owned. The long-term disposition of the building hasn't been determined yet, although the county is receiving proposals. The nursing home may look at the possibility of turning the hospital into assisted-living apartments.
In the meantime, the county must pay utilities and other maintenance costs. The building will be kept under some climate control, even though it will be unoccupied, in order to keep mold from forming.
The county will also have to begin providing maintenance for the Medical Arts Building, a task which had previously been handled by the hospital.
There are other details as well, like transferring certification of the helipad behind the hospital to the county. Bedford County Emergency Medical Services has asked the county to keep the helipad open, so that it can be used as a convenient in-town location for transferring patients between an ambulance and Vanderbilt LifeFlight or other medical transport helicopters.
In other discussion Tuesday night:
* The committee recommended allowing Bedford County Animal Control to purchase a surplus ambulance from BCEMS for use as a mobile adoption unit and for general use as an animal control truck. The ambulance must be sold for $500 instead of simply being transferred because Animal Control and BCEMS are in different tax fund budgets.
* The committee recommended selling a surplus Sheriff's Department vehicle to Bell Buckle. The town has been using the vehicle for several months for its newly-hired police officer.
Dianatn,
I understand your concern. I have not been in the old school, so I am not familiar with the structure. I would love to see us re-use some of our old buildings in some capacity and just knowing schools I would agree with you in the use of the old school, possibly easier to make more family friendly with larger rooms. The old hospital is a safe structure, just would not be cost effective to convert to a shelter. We have folks in the county that are very creative and supportive that would back a homeless shelter where we can give people a hand up to get them back on their feet. It sounds like you have some very good ideas and experience that could be used in this area, and a very willing heart.
Sharon22
I Understand what you are saying, kind of anyway.
But I feel the exact same way about the old hospital building as I did about the old Harris Middle School on Elm Street. I said even way back then it would make a good homeless shelter, the old gym would have made a great place to have a community store where the Shelbyville Residents who needed clothing or household items could come and get them. These items could be donated by others in the community instead of giving them to Goodwill. "Don't get me wrong there is nothing wrong with Goodwill but if someone has no money $7.00 for a pair of jeans is a lot of money.
You have to admit their used furniture isn't exactly cheap either."
But it has been told by city officials the old school was unsafe for people to live in, yet just the year before it was safe enough for our children to attend school there every day.
And now several years later the building still stands empty...probably the same thing will happen with the old hospital. Which I find very sad..when people need a safe place to sleep.
I lived in Wisconsin several years ago and they had taken the old hospital and made a Homeless Shelter. It is the most organized place I had ever been in my entire life..it isn't the Hilton but it was clean and safe.
The Outreach programs gave food every month to the shelter as did many businesses and farmers. They housed about 50 to 75 people on any given day and served more than 150 meals twice a day all with volunteers. People living at the shelter worked at the shelter cleaning and repairing things and cooking meals and washing clothes. They worked in the store sorting clothing and household items. The farmers in the area knew they could come to the shelter and find men willing to help them in the fields or women who would help the wives with housework and gardening.
Personally I didn't care for the state of Wisconsin it was far too cold for my Southern Blood but they took care of their own without adding any burden to the tax payer. It is said the South is the most caring and hospitable people in the USA but I think maybe they could learn something from their Northern neighbors.
Dianatn
That would be the exact reason a new hospital has been built, many of the renovations needed were too expensive to do in the old hospital to make a loved ones recovery more comfortable. While parts of the building could be useable, I would much rather throw my support behind CROSS and have something much more family friendly. I would be in full support of a homeless shelter and helping out, just don't feel the old hospital would be a good starting place.
I completely agree with BCRESIDENT and would like to add the idea to get a county owned homeless shelter by building the school maintenance dept a much needed building behind the old hospital close to the current bus garage. That would give them the convenience of sharing some employee hours or combining management to cut some costs between those two county depts. The old school maintenance building would be an ideal location without alot of changes for the new homeless shelter. Maybe not the four seasons kind but a good start on helping people in need.
>>The hospital on the other had would require way too much renovation to make it liveable even as a homeless shelter, I don't think it would be cost effective.<<
Ok what you are saying it has been okay for the present hospital to house sick patients and charge 1000's of dollars for doing so but yet it is not liveable for a homeless shelter? Com'on now.. be a tad bit realistic here. If it was ok for me or my family to be housed in while trying to recover from an illness surely it would be liveable for someone who has nothing but a car for shelter. I am sure sharing a shower would be the least of any of their worries.
I don't know much about the state of our empty schools and nursing home but I've lived in dorms that had one set of toilets,sinks and showers per floor or sinks and commodes (some shared by two units) in the room and bathtub and showers down the hall.
During WWII,barracks with communal baths were sufficient for our armed forces.
We don't need to offer anything substandard but we
could make do with something less than perfect and state-of-the-art to get things started and upgrade later.
take the hospital, put bars on the windows, take doors out of each room and put in cell doors and simply turn it into a jail. who cares if it is perfect.. ITS JAIL!!! NOT A HOWARD JOHNSON'S!!! i believe the state even pays X amount of dollars to house state prisoners.
The Medical Arts building would be wonderful for the county to use as office space, plenty of room for storage of records if a good portion of the present occupants move out. The hospital on the other had would require way too much renovation to make it liveable even as a homeless shelter, I don't think it would be cost effective. The only rooms at present that have private baths are the rooms at the front of the hospital, the rest only have a commode and sink, which limit you to around 10 rooms on 3rd floor that could be utilized as a shelter. I don't mean to sound negative about utilizing our present building, but my personal opinion as a taxpayer is the county would be better of fiscally to sell the hospital, but keep the MAB for use as county offices.
The medical arts building would be best served if all county offices would occupy it, including the mayor.
Move everyone out of the court house other than those that are directly associated with day to day court operations. Renovate the courthouse to be able to have multiple court rooms and that would fix the issue about enough space for offices and court.
The old hospital building should be used as large nursing home. It is attached to the current nursing home. It wou;d allow 100-125 bed increase to the current nursing home.
The old hospital building has an ER, Lab, and x-ray along with a kitchen. That is everything you need to bid out a private clinic that would pay the county rent to use the er and basic x-ray and labs. The nursing home patients would use the x-ray, labs and clinic and the county would be able to bill for those services. The county would profit a good deal.
OR.......
Sell the nursing home rights. Tear down both the nursing home and old hospital and build a jail in its place.
There is plenty of room in the Medical Arts building for every office the city and county has...
I think the hospital and maybe the Medical Arts building, since it is already paid for, should house some of the county offices that need the space. The county says they are broke, but are paying rent at the bank where those offices are now but still can't figure out what to do with soon to be empty buildings. I dont' understand. With what they save in rent which could include the rent they pay for the county clerk, property assessor, general sessions judge, juvenile probation and county probation staff and many others, we should have money in surplus instead of in the red.
That sounds like a WONDERFUL idea Dianatn!!
Personally I always thought the old Hospital would make a wonderful Homeless shelter. The rooms have private baths. There are 3 floors so they could be split between single men on one floor, single women on one floor and Families on a different floor. There is already a kitchen there where meals could be prepared with a dining area large enough to accommodate many people.
Seems like the prefect place to me :>)