MOSES LAKE – Grant County will want a new morgue, and county officials are in favor of land to build one.
Grant County Coroner Craig Morrison said the need for a new facility arose because the existing one is at Samaritan Hospital. A new Samaritan hospital is under construction, but it will not have a new morgue. Grant County Central Services Director Tom Gaines said it’s because available space at the hospital is limited.
Originally, county officials envisioned a morgue of about 5,000 to 5,200 square feet, Gaines said, but that before the morgue got its reaccreditation, county officials reviewed the recommendations in the accompanying report.
“That’s when we realized maybe it wasn’t big enough,” Gaines said.
Morrison said the accreditation procedure component is an investigation of the existing area and existing workload. Currently, the coroner works at a small workplace in the Grant County Health District, in addition to the hospital morgue, where autopsies, blood tests and toxicology screenings are performed. performed, among other procedures. Between the two, the coroner has about 3,200 square feet at his disposal.
“Our workload exceeds our existing footage,” Morrison said.
The accreditation team warned that, given the coroner’s workload, it will need more area and more staff.
Morrison said the coroner’s office investigated 521 cases in 2023. The accreditation team said the GCCO has one investigator for every hundred cases. Four people, in addition to Morrison, make up the existing team.
The coroner’s job is to investigate all deaths that occur outdoors at a medical facility, Morrison said. “All deaths that occur outdoors under the care of a doctor,” he said.
In addition to the Grant County cases, the morgue is used in some neighboring counties, adding Adams, Kittitas and Lincoln counties. Grant County charges counties for use of the facility.
Based on the credentialing team’s recommendations, county officials are in an approximately 7,500-square-foot facility with the option to expand. Morrison said the number of instances will reach 600 investigations by 2024, compared to about 300 when he first joined the coroner. workplace in 2010.
Gaines said county officials spoke with Samaritan architects and structure managers, and that the area they could save — the original estimate of about 5,000 square feet — wasn’t enough.
“We just couldn’t get the area we needed on the hospital side,” Gaines said.
County officials discovered an asset next to the new Samaritan site owned by the Moses Lake School District. Morrisoin said it’s more convenient for the morgue to be where the peak of cases are, and in Grant County, it’s Moses Lake.
“We belong to our county medical network,” Morrision said. “The medical network is in Moses Lake. “
County officials have spoken with MLSD, but no agreement has been reached, Gaines said.
The charge for a new morgue has been determined. Gaines said there’s an initial design, but it’s for a 5,000-square-foot building.
“We might have to start from scratch,” Gaines said.
The new Samaritan Hospital is expected to be open to patients until spring 2026, and a new morgue will want to be in a position to open until then, Gaines said.
“I’ve got this clock ticking,” he said.
Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at cschweizer@columbiabasinherald. com.