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Samaritan, county officials to meet on morgue

| July 29, 2020 11:21 PM

MOSES LAKE — Samaritan Healthcare and Grant County officials will meet in the next couple of weeks to discuss plans for a new morgue in the new Samaritan hospital to be built.

County commissioners decided to build a new morgue in the hospital, with the county paying for the morgue. The design option chosen is forecast to cost about $4.2 million to build.

Samaritan commissioners approved construction of a new hospital in 2019, and planning was underway until the COVID-19 outbreak in March. Samaritan commissioners agreed to restart planning in June. Samaritan CEO Theresa Sullivan said Tuesday that hospital officials had been working on obtaining financing for the project during the time it was on hold.

Commissioners opted to apply to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for the majority of the financing, and Sullivan said hospital officials have been answering questions from USDA officials and hope to get an answer from them in August.

The current morgue is in the existing hospital.

A committee was chosen to start looking at options for what to do with the existing hospital facility, but its first meeting was postponed until August due to the coronavirus outbreak, Sullivan said.

- Cheryl Schweizer