September

County enters into agreement with St. Vincent’s to operate proposed hospital

Chilton County health care officials have entered into a formal agreement with St. Vincent’s Health System for the operation of a proposed medical facility in the county.

The Chilton County Hospital Board had recently approved a “letter of intent” outlining an agreement in which a county-owned hospital facility constructed using funds from a temporary 1-cent sales tax increase would be operated by St. Vincent’s.

“The idea is, at some point we’re going to have a building that is going to be operated by St. Vincent’s Health System off Lay Dam Road,” said Sibley Reynolds, spokesman for the hospital board.

Local leaders, including the county’s state legislative delegation of Sen. Cam Ward and Rep. Kurt Wallace, have indicated support for a 1-cent sales tax increase.

Before the tax hike could take effect, the Chilton County Commission would have to pass a resolution supporting the measure, the state Legislature would have to approve it and Chilton County residents would have to vote in favor of the tax increase in an upcoming referendum, possibly in November 2014.

Jemison man accidentally shoots wife and child while reloading handgun

An accidental shooting late Sept. 14 resulted in a 25-year-old Jemison female and her 3-year-old child being hospitalized in Birmingham from a single gunshot wound.

Chilton County Sheriff Kevin Davis said authorities responded to a call at 10 p.m. Sept. 14 from the 900 block of County Road 178 from a subject advising authorities he had shot his wife and child with a gun.

Davis said when the caller told the 911 dispatcher he had shot his wife and child with a gun, the caller’s cell phone went dead.

Once on the scene, Davis said officers from the Jemison Police Department along with deputies from the sheriff’s department and an off-duty police officer who lives in the neighborhood found the female and her 3-year-old child suffering from a single gunshot wound after the male, 27, accidentally shot them while cleaning his gun in the family living room.

The female was airlifted to a Birmingham hospital and the child was transported by ground to a Birmingham hospital.

“He told authorities that he had just completed cleaning his handgun, was in the process of reloading it and had an accidental discharge of the gun,” Davis said. “A single bullet struck the wife, exited the wife and struck the child. One shot was fired and that one shot struck both the wife and the child.”

Davis said due to the close proximity of the wife and the child to the husband, the bullet was able to hit both mother and child.

Former agriculture building in Isabella torn down

One of the oldest structures left standing in the Isabella community was torn down.

Built in 1923, the former agriculture building at Isabella High School was demolished to make way for added parking for a new storm shelter that will be built in between the agriculture building and the Isabella Fire Department.

The Chilton County Board of Education voted on Sept. 17 to grant maintenance supervisor Wayne Howell permission to demolish and remove the building.

Originally, discussion about the building being torn down circulated when the county voted to add 11 more storm shelters so that each resident in the county would be only a 5-minute drive from a shelter.

One of the locations for the first three shelters to be built was near the old Ag building at 1960 County Road 29 in the Isabella community.

The agriculture building has not been used since the 2008-2009 school year, according to Isabella High School principal Ricky Porter.

A new agriculture building was built during the same year but Porter said at the time, the former agriculture building was the oldest operating agriculture building in the state of Alabama.

Porter said the building was opened in the fall of 1923 as an agriculture building with the original wooden frame still standing.

A block addition was added to the building in 1960 and the block addition will remain and be used by the Isabella varsity football team and the youth league.

Both Porter and Hayden said the building was infested with termites and was beyond salvaging.

Locals prepare for opening of new online health care marketplace

Oct. 1 was the day online marketplaces for health insurance enrollment launched under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the federal government’s new health law, and Chilton County healthcare employees prepared for questions residents might have about the law.

Coverage through the marketplaces were set to begin Jan. 1, 2014.

“I’m still learning myself,” said Clinic Supervisor Ludean Hicks at the Chilton County Health Department. “I’m hoping that people who need it will go ahead and apply for it because something is better than nothing. Most of our patients don’t have health insurance.”

Although Hicks didn’t know how many non-insured patients the Chilton County Health Department receives each year, she said she and her staff see patients who need more extensive medical services than they can afford without health insurance, and she thinks the new law could help them.

President Barack Obama signed comprehensive health reform known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) into law in March 2010.

The law is designed to make preventive health care more affordable and available to more Americans; lower the number of uninsured people by expanding public and private insurance coverage; and decrease healthcare costs.

Created by the Affordable Care Act, Health Insurance Marketplaces, also known as Exchanges, will be set up to facilitate a more organized and competitive market for buying health insurance, according to the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation’s website, kff.org. Beginning in 2014, Marketplaces will serve primarily individuals buying insurance on their own and small businesses, the website said.