Commissioners get MHCC update

CEO Ken Harman inform BOCCC on recovery at hospital following heating system failure

More than a week after the catastrophic failure of the heating system at Memorial Hospital of Carbon County (MHCC), CEO Kenneth Harman provided an update to the Board of Carbon County Commissioners (BOCCC) at their February 18 meeting. 

Harman informed the commissioners how the incident occurred, progress on MHCC resuming regular business and what steps were being taken to try and prevent future incidents. According to Harman, heating loss to all of the third floor and portions of the second and first floors occurred over a 48 hour period beginning on February 9 and into February 10 as a total of 17 coils in the variable air volume (VAV) boxes went out.

“That equates to somewhere between 70 and 80 pipe breaks throughout that organization. We had a lot of flooding as a result. I’m proud to say that we have an absolutely wonderful team at the hospital of employees, doctors and a board,” said Harman. “With all folks together we had 60 or 70 people late into the evening on Sunday night and again on Monday night making sure that we mitigated the damages to the extent we could.”

Since the failure of the heating system, Harman said MHCC brought in multiple companies to assess and repair the system. Among those was Cator Ruma, an engineering company with an office in Cheyenne, who was able to determine the cause of the catastrophic failure.

“The cause of the problem was in the control system in the hydronics, or the water system that heats up the air. There was supposed to be a failsafe on the system that would prevent the duct temperature to go below a certain level. That failsafe failed and as a result, in the ducts, you had 26 degree air,” Harman said. “Twenty-six degree air blowing over coils with water in it resulted in those coils freezing and, when the demand for heat came, 180 degree water went through those pipes and you ended up with a lot of breaks.”

Harman added that the decision to shut down inpatient services and transfer patients to other hospitals in Wyoming came following a discussion with MHCC physicians and the MHCC Board of Trustees. 

“As I looked at this and made the difficult decision to transfer some of our patients to hospitals in the rest of the state, I’m very proud of the Wyoming Hospital Association and the agreements that we have with the other hospitals and their willingness to help out in the event,” said Harman. “There was a lot of effort on the part of our providers to ensure that we kept our emergency room, our lab, our imaging and our pharmacy going so that we could continue to provide emergent services to the residents of Carbon County.” 

Harman further informed the BOCCC that redundant failsafes had been put in following this event and that MHCC had contracted with Cator Ruma to examine all mechanical systems in the building.

“I want to understand what our risks are for every particular type of system so we don’t have any future risks come up as well,” Harman said.

That process, according to the MHCC CEO, would take 4 to 6 months to complete.

Acting Chairperson Sue Jones informed Harman that she had talked with MHCC Board of Trustees President Rod Waeckerlin following the event about the Board of Trustees’ five year plan for the hospital.

“I know you guys are talking in a five year plan of a new hospital, possibly. I, personally, think you maybe need to step that up and look at funding to do a new hospital sooner rather than later. That one was a 1971 vintage,” said Jones. “We need a hospital in this county.”

Jones clarified her statement by adding that the proposed critical access hospital in Saratoga was “comparing apples to oranges” with MHCC in Rawlins. She stated that there were many things that the North Platte Valley Medical Center would not be providing that MHCC does.

“We need your apple here in Carbon County and I think the sooner you can get to that would be better because it’s an old building,” Jones said. “Today it’s the HVAC system, tomorrow it’s the roof. The elevators, we already know, have issues. The stairwell skid plates are wore (sic) out. There’s a million things wrong with that physical plant and this might be the turning point to where you move forward and, as a county commissioner, I would definitely support doing a new hospital sooner rather than later.”

The next meeting of the Board of Carbon County Commissioners will be at 9 a.m on March 3 at the County Courthouse in Rawlins.

 

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