Health care continues lead discussions in Beatty

BEATTY — Health care matters dominated a brief Beatty Town Advisory Board meeting Aug. 22.

Barbara Conton, nursing instructor with Great Basin College, gave the board a presentation on the upcoming remote area medicine clinic planned for Pahrump on Sep. 30-Oct. 2.

Conton said the clinic will feature free medical, dental, and vision care on a first-come, first-served basis. The vision care van will even be able to make eyeglasses and deliver them on a same-day basis.

The event will be held at the NyE Communities Coalition, from 6 a.m. till 4 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and from 6 a.m. until noon on Sunday on those dates. She said that they will open the gates at midnight, when past experience indicates people will begin lining up and begin handing out appointment numbers at 3 a.m.

Conton said that the clinic can serve about 250 patients per day. There is considerable waiting involved, so people should come prepared with water and something to entertain themselves, such as books or magazines.

There was some discussion of how to publicize the event in Beatty and to find some way to transport senior citizens to it.

The other health-related matter on the board’s agenda was a request, which they readily approved, to spend up to $1,440 to send up to three people to the 2016 Nevada State EMS Conference, Sept. 22-24 in Elko.

Beatty Fire Chief Mike Harmon and Beatty Volunteer Ambulance Service coordinator Allison Henderson explained that the training provided there would help in maintaining national registry certification for EMTs in Beatty.

Harmon also said that they now have local instructors, including himself, who can train new EMT candidates, and they are looking toward attracting volunteers to form a class.

Board Chairman Dick Gardner advised those present that the county may be once more considering instituting special use permits for builders, something Beatty has strongly opposed in the past.

Gardner said the impetus seems to center around Rupert (Bragg-Smith) and Family Dollar. Bragg-Smith has strongly opposed the location and orientation of the new Family Dollar Store in Beatty, which is across the street from his property, and has complained about its lighting.

Board Treasurer Erika Gerling said that the regulations regarding special use permits are too vague and open to interpretation, opening them up to favoritism — “too much I like you or don’t like you.”

Gardner said that had special use permits been required when the volunteers were converting the former Episcopal church into the VFW post, the extra expense involved, including inspections, would have meant they couldn’t have done it.