Owner says
group is currently
weighing three
potential options


By Misti Drew
Tribune-Courier Reporter
mdrew@tribunecourier.com

BENTON – Possible plans for the old hospital building are beginning to take shape, according to one of the facility’s new owners, Dennis Smith.

Smith is one of four businessmen who formed the limited liability partnership known as MRBS.

They successfully submitted the highest bid for the building at $116,501 earlier this year.

Smith said the team of investors bought the property with no clear plan in mind. “It just seemed like a great investment to me,” he said.

Now that paperwork on the deal has been finalized, three proposed uses for the building are being disclosed.

Option number one, said Smith, is a medical school. Through a joint venture with the University of Kentucky and Murray State University, the Rural Physician Leadership Program has been created.

The program will take third and fourth year medical students and transfer them from the University of Kentucky to a rural-area training center somewhere in the service region of MSU.

Students would continue with training at the center and on-campus MSU class instruction, as well as complete residency work in regional hospitals located in Marshall, Graves, Calloway, McCracken and Crittenden counties, among others. Students would live on-site at the training center.

If selected, Smith’s building would provide the necessary room and living space for such a project.

The program is one Smith said he is excited about.

“There is already a committee in place and they have met several times on this issue. I think Benton would be a very central location in light of the geographical area the students would be traveling to.”

Vice President of Institutional Development for Murray-Calloway County Hospital, Keith Travis said, if the program goes through, UK will add 10 positions to their 2010 residency program. Those students would then form the pilot physician leadership program.

Travis said expansions such as this are going to be vital to the future health care system of Kentucky.

“As of 2007, there were only 8,900 doctors serving more than 4 million Kentuckians, and with ‘Baby Boomers’ aging, the demand is only going to increase.”

Travis said of those 8,900 physicians, more than 25 percent live in the Louisville and Lexington areas.

This new program was designed to shift new residents into more rural areas. “More than half of residents stay in the communities where they train,” Travis said. “That is why this program is so important.”

For now, no concrete decisions have been made on the training center’s location. But Smith said he will be watchful of the program’s development as progress continues.

The second option for the site is a proposed veterans administration building and convalescent center.

Smith said the facility would be perfectly suited to meet the needs of local veterans in that the closest convalescent center for veterans is in Madisonville.

“I am still working on the right contacts to make that plan more of a viable option,” Smith added. “But I think it would be a great service to our community.”

“I really started thinking about this when I read an article in the paper about the new veterans center opening in Mayfield. There are service centers in Graves and McCracken Counties, but there is not one in Marshall.”

Option three is possibly the most unexplored of the group, but still being considered is the possibility of a drug rehabilitation clinic, which would serve the western Kentucky region.

Due to a shortage of centers in the state, local rehabilitation advocates are in favor of such a concept.

While options for the building are still in the planning phase, Smith has purchased most of the hospital’s original kitchen equipment in hopes of making the building more appealing and ready to use for potential buyers.