Local News – Thursday, July 21st, 2022

With another round of excessive heat expected this week and through the weekend, the City of Salem and Intercounty Electric Cooperative Association are again asking everyone to try to conserve your energy usage especially between 2:00 in the afternoon until about 9:00 in the evening to keep your electric bill as low as possible. The easiest way is to increase the temperature on your thermostat for your air conditioner anywhere from one degree to four or five degrees, use ceiling fans or small fans to help circulate the air in your home, refrain from doing any baking or using your stove top burners fully during those hours by preparing meals earlier in the day and using your microwave to reheat them during the hottest part of the day, avoid doing laundry during these hours especially if you have an electric water heater and electric clothes dryer, and close your blinds or drapes to eliminate direct sunlight from beating into your home which can add as much as ten or more degrees to the temperature. These tips can help conserve energy and help you save on your electric bill. For more energy saving tips, please visit www.salemmo.com or ieca.coop and type in the search box summer energy saving tips.

The Salem Memorial District Hospital regular board meeting was held Tuesday evening in the Hospital Library. The Board elected officers for the next fiscal year, and they are Mike Swyers as Chairman, Willie Strader as Vice-Chairman and A. J. Seay as Secretary. Interim CEO Don Babb said Jim Renfrow is the new lab director and right now an investment analysis on a walk-in clinic is being done with hopes of opening one this fall. Dr. Al talked about Dr. Tiffany Bland and how she has about 15-16 patients per day and is using the Salem hospital services except where specialization is needed. In the summary of operations for the month of June, the hospital had 62 inpatient admissions with 226 inpatient census days. There were 112 days of swingbed with an average length of stay almost 27 days. During the month, there were 631 emergency room visits with 41 admissions, plus there were 187 ambulance runs where 135 patients were transported. In June, there were 22 surgical procedures cases, 1,227 outpatient registrations, 5,273 lab tests, 1,010 radiological procedures, 651 rehab treatments and 149 home health visits with 12 home health admissions. The days cash on hand was at 71 with $5.2 million total cash. The hospital showed a gain from operations for June of $339,855.36 with an Excess of Revenues of $343,586. CFO JoeAnn Hammond said the hospital for the last fiscal year lost $306,114.30 with an increase in revenues of around three million dollars while the expenses remained about the same. She said the hospital will pay off the Medicare advance payment by the second week of August which currently has a balance of $258,987.12. She also has worked with the auditors cleaning up several accounts, capitalizing the POB 3 building basement improvement and the MRI building addition. Ashley Sullins gave the Director of Nursing report and said Telemetry in being installed Monday with training scheduled all week. She said John Sawyer was hired June 27th as the Med-Surg and ED Clinical Supervisor while Sammy Smith stepped down from the ED Clinical Supervisor position and became a part-time Clinical Informatic Specialist. The hospital is short two full-time night shift nurses and a PRN day shift nurse in Med Surg, and the Emergency Department needs full time night shift nurse. She said currently there are 44 COVID-19 cases in Dent County with a positivity rate of 9.35%. Hammond said the Hospital Foundation had a $14,922 profit for the golf tournament and are planning a cornhole tournament in September or October. The board elected Wanda Tatom to serve as the board foundation representative. In the community, Family Nurse Practitioner Shelly Bland gave 24 sports physicals in Ellington with three of the families transferring their care to the SMDH Family Medicine. They also were part of the 4-H and FFA Livestock Auction and Pie Auction held at The Commons. The Med staff reviewed and recommended staff privileges for Dr. Munfahk and Ray, MD-Thoracic Surgeons from Washington University in St. Louis, Dr. Dar, MD in teleradiology, Shannon Jennings in tele-psych, Dr. Tessaro in Emergency Department LifeStat, Dr. Marc Franke, Optometrist for Long-Term Care, Dr. Hornbeck for the Emergency Department, Dr. Baldwin in Gynecology and Dr. Nelly for the Clinic and Hospitalist who will begin at SMDH Family Medicine around December 1st. The transformer project is now underway but there is a 10-12 week lead time on transformers. The hospital expects the work to be completed around November 1st. The hospital had eight new employees start in June but 10 other employees left the employ of the hospital. The board set the public tax rate hearing for August 16th at 5:45. CEO Babb reminded the board of the Delta Regional Community Health Systems Development Program meet and greet at 5:30 on September 20th. The board then went into closed session.

An accident occurred Tuesday night at 9:48 in Iron County on County Road 80-A about four miles east of Viburnum that took the life of a Belleview man. According to the highway patrol report a northbound 2002 Ford Focus, driven by 18-year-old Brant Sanders of Bellview, traveled off the left side of the roadway and struck a tree. Sanders was pronounced dead just after midnight Wednesday by Dr. Matthew Hart at Washington County Memorial Hospital in Potosi. According to the report Sanders was not wearing a safety device at, the time of the accident. The Ford was totaled and removed from the scene by Abney’s Towing.

The Salem Community Choir free concert scheduled for this Sunday at the Courthouse Gazebo has been postponed due to the excessive heat predicted for the weekend. The next concert for the choir will be on the courthouse lawn Sunday August 14th at 2:00 in the afternoon.