News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Fentress County’s new standalone ER prepping for a Wednesday opening date after passing the state inspection.
County Executive Jimmy Johnson said passing the inspection means the ER is officially ready to start accepting patients. He said the final step was doing licensure checks on all equipment and procedures.
“Mostly the equipment to make sure it was all workable,” Johnson said. “To my understanding, making sure if a door is supposed to lock it locks, if it’s supposed to open it opens, their outside stuff all around the equipment that’s outside under the fence. Just overall the whole building, including making sure communications were good with your ambulance coming in.”
Johnson said besides a few odds and ends, all construction is complete as well. He said employees have spent the last few weeks undergoing training to brush up on new instrumentations.
The plans include six exam rooms plus a trauma room for major health incidents. Imaging services will include CT, X-ray, and Ultrasound. The facility will also include an on-site lab for immediate results and a physician’s office.
Johnson said that they hope to employ about 25 to 30 people to start. He said that when the hospital closed in 2019, about 150 jobs were lost.
“And that was a big hit on our economy here in Fentress County,” Johnson said. “And hopefully we can build it back a little bit a time and get back where we need to be. This would be a big relief for of course a lot of people here in town that have to go to an emergency room out of town to Cumberland Clay and to also Putnam County. We sure do appreciate that they’ve given us all this time, and hopefully, when we get this up and running in the third quarter it will take some of the pressure off of them their emergency rooms also. They’ve been more than gracious to help be able to do something here in Fentress and we’re very thankful they’ve obliged in helping us and taking our patients when they need to.”
