The Hunt Memorial Hospital District Board of Trustees learned that a planned expansion of the Commerce hospital has been sidetracked.

During Tuesday’s HMHD trustees’ meeting, Hunt Regional Healthcare Chief Executive Officer Richard Carter said that plans for expansion of the Commerce Hospital including building a new lab at a cost of $320,000 “need to be changed immensely”.

“That’s not feasible,” he said, explaining that rules prohibited a new building being attached to the old hospital.

He added that the board would need to discuss what to do in Commerce at a later board meeting. “Do we do nothing — or build a new hospital at the cost of 10 to 12 million dollars?” Carter asked.

Board member Frank Janda said he believed Commerce should be expanded since a company has announced an expansion that could bring a 1,000 jobs to the community.

After the meeting, on Wednesday, Hospital District communications director Jack Gray clarified the hospital status saying that a feasibility study had been done to build a new lab, but it was not feasible. Instead the hospital layout was rearranged to provide lab space. He added that building a new hospital would require a great deal of additional planning. “The Commerce hospital is a Critical Access Hospital, meaning the location cannot change,” Gray said. “That would be the challenge in rebuilding.”

Jeri Rich, Chief Financial Officer, reported that the number of patients at both Commerce and Greenville was below forecasts during May. “It was the lowest of the year (for any month) in Commerce,” Rich said.

In other action, the trustees gave approval to increase the budget of the Hunt Regional Medical Center Podiatric Surgical Program from $189,000 to $228,753. Most of the increase was for salary raises that the program director, Dr. Steven Brancheau, said were necessary to keep the program competitive in bringing in top residency doctors. He added that the program will still operate in the black while bringing prestige to the hospital. Brancheau said that the three residency doctors saw 630 patients with foot and ankle injuries in the ER during the past year. He hopes to increase the number of residency doctors to six by 2012. The salary increase will go from the current $32,000 a year for a first year residency doctor to $42,000 next year and the current $36,000 for a third year residency doctor to $46,000 next year.

Carter said that a clinic in Royse City on the west side of Hunt County was still planned. Carter said that a member of the medical staff had questioned whether that was a wise investment — that patients might opt to head west for medical care, but Carter said he still feels that growth in Royse City and Caddo Mills make it viable.

Dr. James Sandin, Assistant Administrator for Medical Affairs, echoed those sentiments. “I would disagree that we can’t attract those patients,” he said, adding that he used to have a large number of patients from that area when he had an active practice.

Documents presented at the meeting indicate the district hopes to open a minor care clinic in 2010, an imagining and rehab center by 2011 and a surgery center in 2011 on district owned property on the east side of Royse City.

The board set July 28 as the date of their budget workshop. The workshop will take place at 5 p.m. before the regular monthly trustees’ meeting.