By Angela Delp
Chatham
Hospital’s new facility is quickly taking shape.
Construction
on the building is "right on time," hospital officials say.
The new
hospital is not expected to be completed until summer 2008 but the
complete exterior of the building is finished.
Crews are
working diligently on the interior. When walking through the
building Construction workers have framed up the hospital’s
interior, making it possible to identify patient rooms and hallways.
Each room’s number is written outside the doorways on the concrete
floor.
"The back of
the hospital, which houses dietary and the cafeteria, was where the
construction began, so it is the most completed," said Chatham
Hospital CEO Carol Straight.
Straight said
the new hospital building will have a number of improvements, such
as an emergency room built with patient privacy in mind.
"Our current
ER was built in the mid-Nineties before privacy was an issue," she
said. "We have curtains rather than doors. Here, we will have
doors."
The new
facility will have separate hallways for employees and shipping and
patients.
"One hallway
will be exclusively for patient use," she said.
Other changes
include larger operating and recovery rooms, larger, more private
patient rooms and a cafeteria with a large dining room.
The hospital’s existing
structure is not in great condition and offers no room for
expansion, hospital officials say.
The new
facility’s design offers possibilities for expansion at each end of
the building.
Although the
current building’s condition does not jeopardize the patient’s
well-being, extensive repairs are needed, such as heating and air,
electrical and handicap accessibility.
Bathrooms in
the present hospital are not handicap accessible and do not have
showers. The new hospital will feature private handicap accessible
bathrooms and showers.
Straight said
parking is a problem at the present building, too.
"We can’t
expand the current hospital building because we’d lose parking," she
said. "We don’t have enough parking now."
At the new
building, there will be ample parking and space for additional
office buildings.
The new location will also
offer orthopedic surgery, endoscopy, procedure rooms, a recovery
room and an emergency room.
more- See Thursday,
November 29, 2007 paper:
Vol 87, No.52
New rules in
effect for lights
The Chatham
County Board of Commissioners last week revised the county’s zoning
ordinance to regulate certain types of outdoor lighting.
"We do want
residents to have enough lighting to be safe at night, but we were
getting to the point that people who used to be able to see the
stars from their backyard were finding it harder and harder to do
that," commented Board of Commissioners vice chairman George Lucier.
Some types of
fixtures waste energy, cause excessive glare or send too much of
their light up into the atmosphere instead of sending light where
it’s most needed, he said.
The new
regulations promote the use of fixtures that conserve energy and
substantially reduce light pollution, which causes those bright
areas in the sky around urban and suburban areas, said Lucier.
Residential and
non-residential developments must submit outdoor lighting plans as
part of the building permit process. The plan must meet specific
requirements related to maximum light levels at property lines,
proper installation of floodlamps, usage of wall pack fixtures,
lighting of privately maintained streets, reduced light output
between midnight and dawn (essential all-night security lighting is
exempt from this last requirement) and reduced energy consumption.
more- See Thursday,
November 29, 2007 paper:
Vol 87, No.52
While recent
rainfall has not significantly increased Siler City’s reservoir
capacity, it has helped slow water loss and brought a bit of
much-needed moisture to other parts of Chatham County.
"The showers
have benefitted us," town manager Joel Brower said Tuesday. "We are
currently 74.5 inches below full.
"We have held
this same level since Sunday because of the rain."
Brower said
the rain gauge at the Siler City Water Plant recorded .09 inches
Monday.
"The little
rain we have had certainly hasn’t hurt but we do need more," he
said.
Area
residents, churches and business owners are invited to participate
in a planned prayer for rain.
Gordon West,
associational missionary of the Sandy Creek Baptist Association in
Sanford and Pastor Ted Wilkins of Joy Baptist Church in Siler City
have organized a prayer meeting December 5 at noon on Siler City
Town Hall’s front lawn.
"This is
something the association felt needed to be done," West said.
"Regardless
of your denomination, anyone who wants to come pray for rain and for
the drought is welcome and is encouraged to attend the prayer
meeting," he said.
Gov. Mike
Easley continued to call on residents across the state to conserve
water.
The federal drought map
released last Thursday shows exceptional drought has returned to
more than half of the state due to the ongoing lack of rain.
"We need to do two things.
First, we need to conserve aggressively between now and the New
Year, and second, we have to have some rain," said Easley. "We
cannot make the rain happen, so we have to work really hard on
conserving."
Last week’s federal drought
map shows 56 counties, up from 25 counties last week, are suffering
an exceptional drought, the worst level of the four-category system.
more- See Thursday,
November 29, 2007 paper:
Vol 87, No.52
