Paul Cardwell has a vision for Powell Valley Healthcare’s future, and he has set it in motion.

Under Cardwell’s direction, the organization is recruiting for two obstetrician/gynecologists, a second full-time orthopedic surgeon, a three-day-per-week cardiologist and another family practice physician.

After holding classes in the basement of the United Methodist Church for 35 years, the Powell Head Start program has moved to the Migrant Head Start building on East Seventh Street.

The Head Start program in Powell is run by Absaroka Inc. of Worland, which also operates Head Start programs in Basin, Buffalo, Cody, Lander, Lovell, Powell, Riverton, Sheridan, Thermopolis and Worland.

In recent years, Powell’s Head Start and Migrant Head Start programs have been vivid examples of the bureaucracy, wastefulness and red tape of many government programs and agencies.

On the one hand was the Head Start program. During the school year, that program provided needed preschool services to children, operating in the basement of a local church under cramped circumstances.

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.