Clallam County commissioners expressed support Monday for a Forks Community Hospital proposal to apply for a $1 million grant to allow the health-care facility to remodel its surgery and medical records units.
“As a board, we can do whatever you need to make you successful,” Commissioners Chairman Steve Tharinger, D-Dungeness, told the Forks hospital’s administrator, Camille Scott, during a meeting at the county courthouse in Port Angeles.
Scott informed the board of the hospital’s plans to apply for a state Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development grant in the amount of at least $1 million. She formally asked the board to sponsor the grant.
Scott said during the past 18 months, the Forks hospital has brought in medical specialists to conduct clinics and use services such as lab, X-ray, operating room, orthopedics, gynecology and podiatry.
Urology is also going to be added as a service, she said.
“The addition of these services has increased the use volunteers and financial viability of a very fragile health-care system,” Scott states in a memorandum to the commissioners.
“With the increase of services and the corresponding rise in the use of space, we have run out of space to continue expanding, especially in the operating suite.”