Reaccreditation report sends mixed messages

Ater nearly four months, Northwest College officials are thankful their wait for a written accreditation report is over.

The draft report, received by NWC President Paul Prestwich on March 8, recommends a seven-year accreditation. That is shorter than the 10-year accreditation the commission granted in 2000.

After more than a year of legal wrangling, attorneys for former nursing student Desta Paris and the Northwest College Nursing Program agreed to limit discussion during a formal contested hearing Tuesday to a single issue.

That issue: Would Paris have failed the nursing program regardless of an alleged medication policy violation that resulted in her dismissal from the program on Dec. 2, 2009?

Though Nour Bagdadi left her home in Tripoli, Libya, only months ago, she finds it difficult even to imagine what things are like there now.

“I don’t know what it looks like — I’ve never been in a war before,” Bagdadi, a Northwest College student, said of her homeland.

Project financed by $33 million bond sale

Construction on an expansion and partial remodel of Cody’s West Park Hospital is set to begin this spring, following last week’s sale of $33 million in bonds as authorized by the hospital’s board.

The bonds will provide $26.2 million to relocate and expand the emergency room, renovate imaging, laboratory and patient financial services areas in the facility and relocate the entrance to the Long Term Care Center, said Doug McMillan, chief executive officer at West Park Hospital.

Last week’s sale of bonds to allow an extensive expansion and renovation project to begin at West Park Hospital is good news — particularly in Cody, but in all of Park County as well.

The $33 million bond sale will provide $26.2 million for the construction of a new emergency room and entrance to the hospital, as well as renovation of the imaging, laboratory and patient financial services area, with another $4.6 million to pay off the balance on the Cathcart Health Center.

Montana native Sean Fox will move from the West Indies to become the vice president for student affairs at Northwest College.

Fox was selected through a nation-wide search that yielded 57 applicants for the position previously held by Dana Young. He begins the job April 18 at an annual salary of $100,000.

For the second time, the Powell Valley Healthcare Board has chosen Paul Cardwell to be its chief executive officer.

Cardwell was the successful candidate when the position was offered in late September, but he resigned in November before filling the position.

On Tuesday, the Wyoming House and Wyoming Senate both passed bills intended to block implementation of the federal health care reform law in Wyoming.

The lawmakers’ actions came one day after a Florida judge struck down the law, saying Congress exceeded its authority by requiring nearly all Americans to carry health insurance.

A Powell teenager was in critical condition in a Billings hospital Monday following a one-car rollover in the Red Lake area south of Cody early Saturday morning.

Park County Sheriff’s deputies and the Cody Volunteer Fire Department responded at 2:51 a.m. to Park County Road 6WXE and found a passenger car lying on its top about 30 feet off the north side of the roadway, according to an e-mailed report from Sheriff Scott Steward.