State Rep. visits Hospital Board

State Rep. Elaine Harvey, R-Lovell, gave some advice to the Hot Springs County Memorial Hospital Board during their meeting Tuesday.

However, Harvey pointed out before she gave advice that she was hesitant to do so.

She informed the board that they need to be the ones actively seeking out a hospital district if they want one, as hospital employees do not receive positive responses from the public.

“Since you don’t have a hospital district, you need to get one,” she said.

As the chairman of the House Labor, Health and Social Services committee, Harvey was invited to attend the meeting in order to inform the board about the current state of health care measures at the state level.

According to Harvey, the state is paying out money to some hospitals in order to help them reach 100 days worth of cash on hand. Days cash on hand is the number of days a hospital can operate with the money they have readily available.

Currently Hot Springs Memorial has a little more than 80 days cash on hand.

Harvey said the hospital should be getting nearly $200,000 from the state. But that doesn’t amount to much as a single day’s cash on hand at Hot Springs Memorial is about $42,500.

Still, that amount is better than nothing as Harvey pointed out there will almost certainly be no money coming from the state next year.

“You’ve got to do everything you can to help yourselves,” she said.

A pyrrhic solution at best, Harvey did offer another quick fix. She said the legislature could require the County Commissioners to pay one mill levy to county hospitals around the state.

Also during the meeting, the board discussed changing the hospital policy regarding piercings and tattoos.

The proposed policy offered up by the department directors at the hospital limits the number of piercings at work to two piercings in the ears.

The old policy allowed ear piercing and nose piercing.

Tattoos were allowed to be worn if covering them up required too much work.

The proposed rule would require that all tattoos be covered.

But the new rules didn’t pass the board as some members had problems with their potential side effects.

“I don’t want to eliminate people from our applicant pool,” board member Breez Daniels said.

Other board members pointed out that piercings are a generational thing, and people shouldn’t be evaluated based on how they express themselves with their bodies.