95 percent of the work for the addition and renovation at the Pickett County Health Department completed.
Pickett County Executive Stephen Bilbrey said the project includes construction of a multi-purpose room. Bilbrey said the room will serve as a back up location to the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) that is located at the Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Building.
“So just the availability of this room, that is, uh, you know, wired for internet, got telephones, it’s got monitors in there, it’s just, it’ll be huge asset for the citizens of Pickett County.” Bilbrey said.
Bilbrey said some of the same grant funds will go towards an expansion of the health department’s pharmacy. Bilbrey said it was simply too small.
“If you went in there, things were on top of each other,” Bilbrey said. “They were just running over each other, trying to do their job. And so, we basically maybe doubled, if not tripled the size of the pharmacy where they can actually put things where they need to go, they’re easily accessible.”
Bilbrey said Pickett County received $565,000 in state grants for these two projects. Bilbrey said he is expects the construction costs to come in $35,000 to $40,000 less than the grant amount.
Bilbrey said he has asked the health department staff to put together a list of things that need to be done.
“That money can’t be used for any other project in the county,” Bilbrey said. ” So, we’ve asked them to go through and just look and see if there’s anything else that we could do to make their jobs easier and to make it better for the folks of Pickett County when they come to the health department.”
