WAUSEON - Bonds for the Fulton County Health Center's $17 million expansion, started in September, will include the refinancing of about $10 million in debt dating back to the late 1990s and early 2000s.

That money, for the health center's oncology and surgery addition as well as the Fulton Manor Nursing Home, was borrowed at about 6 percent interest.

By combining it with the bonds for the latest expansion, the interest rate should be about 4 percent, Dean Beck, health center administrator, said.

Issuance of the bonds was approved this month by the Fulton County commissioners.

The latest expansion will include a larger emergency room and make more space for occupational medicine, surgery, and an endoscopic unit.

Hospital leaders, however, have decided against using any money for the project that the health center is to receive from the estate of Dorothy Biddle, who died Jan. 12 at age 106.

Mrs. Biddle willed the hospital half of the remaining portion of her estate, after $1.4 million in specific gifts are distributed to other charities. Last spring when the hospital expansion was announced, its board was discussing using her bequest for it.

The board does not yet know how much money it will receive, Mr. Beck said. But leaders are considering using that gift to start offering dialysis at the hospital. Fulton County residents on dialysis now drive at least 30 minutes and some drive more than an hour to Toledo, Defiance, or Bryan, Mr. Beck said.

Mrs. Biddle's money for the hospital is set aside for projects approved by her executors.

The hospital's construction on the south end of its location on Shoop Avenue is expected to be finished in 18 months to two years.

It is needed, Mr. Beck said, because the hospital's seven-bed emergency room is typically full at least once a week and sometimes once or twice a day. It was last modified in the late 1980s.

When the new emergency room is complete, the current emergency room will be used to expand the lab and X-ray departments.

Hospital leaders plan to expand the occupational medicine area, which has one room now, to three or four rooms. Three registered nurses are employed in that area to work with industry. Another surgery room and a larger area for endoscopic exams also is planned.

The county commissioners were involved in approving the bonds for the work because the county owns the property on which the hospital sits.

Contact Jane Schmucker at:

jschmucker@theblade.com

or 419-337-7780.

First Published November 29, 2005, 12:30 p.m.