Local News – Tuesday, December 13th, 2022
The Dent County Commissioners met for their meeting Monday morning. In the road report, District 1 Commissioner Wes Mobray said his crew will finished up the Title II rock project on Dent County Road 5600 Monday. He said crews would be replacing two crossover pipes on county road 2430, then adding rock and materials to the areas. District 2 Commissioner Gary Larson said rock was going to be added and spread out on Dent County Roads 2510, 3140, 3150 and 3180 while brush would also be cut on county road 2510. He said a crew would be servicing county truck #126. Presiding Commissioner Darrell Skiles said he was proud that Angela Black from the Dent County Westside 4-H Club for stream cleanup near the Bonebrake Center and Sara Massengale from the University Extension for her work with numerous recycling projects in the county received awards for their hard work. He said he attended the Transportation Advisory Committee meeting Thursday and said of the 31 projects presented for scoring, receiving the highest score for priority projects was the replacing of the bridge on Route TT at Sligo. Skiles said the Highway 32 bridge at Boss came in 9th in the scoring. Skiles said there would be a Dent County Hazard Mitigation meeting today at the Salem Community Center@The Armory starting at 1:00. He recommends all those entities that have an interest in the plan attend the meeting for their input. Skiles also said the new SEMA Flood Insurance Rate Maps for Dent County are now available for public review at the courthouse at the commissioner’s office. Engineer Corky Stack was in attendance to discuss the bathroom situation at the courthouse as well as roofing. The commission said Stack could get estimates on replacing the shingle roof on the courthouse with commercial metal roofing. Dent County Clerk Angie Curley said she was working on the budget and financial statements. The next meeting of the commission will be Thursday at 9:00 and the meeting is open to the public.
On Thursday, the Salem Memorial District Hospital held their Strategic Planning Retreat for 2022. In attendance were SMDH Board Members, leadership from the Rural Hospital Group (RHG), representatives and heads of SMDH departments and the media. RHG Chief Executive officer Trent Skaggs discussed the impact SMDH employment has on the local economy in that the hospital’s payroll turns over about 12 times locally creating a large economic driver for Salem and surrounding communities. Another strength is the affordability of services where a procedure that would cost $20,000 in a metro hospital like those in St. Louis, would cost about $6,000 here in Salem with the same technology, care and equipment. Skaggs and SMDH CEO Wayne Reid recounted early hurtles and accomplishments of the new administration, from the very real threat of SMDH closing to its current rebound and continued growth. In reviewing recent hospital trends, COVID-19’s impact stood out over much of the data points and would be a reoccurring point of discussion throughout the meeting. from staff shortages to federal funding charges. Skaggs then presented information regarding the SMDH service area, demographics, inpatient origin by surrounding counties and overall market share. Darrel Morris, the Chief Operation Officer of RHG, led a presentation that reviewed each department’s utilization over the last 16 fiscal quarters. With this data in hand, members of the meeting then broke out into smaller groups with the intention to refine and repackage the data for leadership to review and plan the future of SMDH that best serves Salem and the surrounding communities.