Dateline: March 3, 2005

Interim to replace Graham at MCNH

By Roger Estlack, Clarendon Enterprise

The Donley County Hospital District Board last week voted to begin searching for an interim administrator and made plans to fill the job permanently with someone who is already a top official at the Medical Center Nursing Home.

The district administrator’s job became vacant February 22 when Alan Graham resigned following a February 21 called meeting in which the board asked him to step down or face termination.

Meeting again in called session Saturday, the board approved a motion to accept applications for the position of interim administrator until March 9, 2005, and also agreed to pay the tuition for MCNH Director of Nurses Vicky Robertson to get her nursing home administrator’s license.

“Vicky is very interested in getting licensed,” board member Onita Thomas said. “She only needs five courses and a 1,000-hour internship under a licensed administrator.”

Robertson, who had previously resigned as director of nurses to pursue another job, said she would rescind her resignation and stay in her current position. She said her classes would start in May and would take a maximum of one and one-half years to complete.

She also said the hospital district’s paying for someone to get licensed in this manner was not unprecedented.

“This has been done before when Peggy Cockerham was an LVN, and they sent her to school to become an RN so she could become Director of Nurses,” Robertson said.

Board members and Robertson both agreed to have something put in writing that would commit her to working for the hospital district or giving the district first right of refusal after she graduates.