Permit delayed hospital construction

WORLAND – Updates were discussed and given on the Washakie Medical Center construction at the Thursday night’s Board of Trustees meeting.

Brad McCaslin, project manager for the hospital construction, said the construction is going very well despite the fact that they had a pause last month while waiting for a permit to be finalized with the Wyoming Healthcare Licensing and Surveys.

The permit in question was for exterior wall and crawl space infrastructure, and it was approved Feb. 8, McCaslin said.

“The wait set construction back two weeks and two days from the original start date of Jan. 25,” McCaslin said.

McCaslin said he spoke with Layton Construction personnel and they said they can make up the lost time with no additional cost.

McCaslin gave a second update on the concrete’s compressive strength. Last month McCaslin had testing cylinders for concrete slabs come back under strength. He thought slabs of concrete were not going to meet the compression strength standards, and they were going to have a problem.

The construction company had Earth Engineering Consulting, based out of Windsor, Colo., do no-destructive and core testing and the concrete fell within the range of allowable limits for 3,500 psi concrete, McCaslin said.

The concrete’s average was 3,200 psi, which is within the range of acceptability, and that problem is resolved,” McCaslin said.

Other business included pending bid approval. Bid packets for bid packets 3 (information technology (IT) cabling and furniture) and bid packet 4 (asbestos abatement) were taken and McCaslin said he will send his recommendations over to Washakie County Attorney John P. Worrall and Banner’s Wyoming Attorney Rick Thompson to review on March 4.

After their review, the bids will be submitted to the county commissioners on March 10. The county will approve the bids on March 15, McCaslin said.

The last item on the agenda up for discussion was the decontamination trailer.

Previously, the hospital purchased a fully-equipped decontamination trailer for $28,500 and now the county is willing to purchase, license and insure it, hospital board member Dan Scheuerman said.

While the trailer has not been used frequently, the supplies inside it have been kept up and the trailer is operational, Scheuerman said.

The hospital board passed a unanimous motion to authorize Scheuerman to sign over the title for the fully-equipped trailer to the county where the county will have it as a county asset.

The trailer would remain operational and would remain at the hospital, hospital board member Anna Venable said.