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By MICHAEL R. GRAHAM; Times Leader Staff Writer
Thursday, August 11, 1994     Page: 3A QUICK WORDS: VALLEY CREST NURSING
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WILKES-BARRE — Death is definite, but is a county-owned morgue at Valley
Crest Nursing Home?
   
The Plain Township nursing home has a suitable room, but Valley Crest
Administrator Robert Reed said autopsies might create havoc for the 384
residents.
    For several years, Luzerne County officials have been talking about a
county facility, and the purchase of nearly new equipment has expedited the
project.
   
County commissioners recently paid $3,500 for an autopsy table and $1,000
for a body refrigeration unit from Moses Taylor Hospital in Scranton after the
hospital expanded and bought new equipment.
   
Luzerne County Administrator/Chief Clerk Eugene Klein called it “an offer
we couldn’t refuse.” Purchased new, the equipment would cost about $20,000,
said Chief Deputy Coroner Joe Shaver.
   
The three Luzerne County commissioners said money is already available for
projects such as building and equipping a morgue. Where to locate a morgue and
how to equip it are decisions best left to the county officials who will run
and oversee the facility, commissioners said.
   
Valley Crest has a body-holding area and its proximity to Interstate 81
makes it an attractive site for a new morgue, Klein said.
   
“But, if it’s not cost beneficial we will use another county-owned site,”
Klein said.
   
Klein said money to construct the morgue would come from the county’s
capital funds budget, which at the beginning of the year was $3,475,000. The
equipment was purchased with money from the $11,000 materials and supply
budget from this year’s $196,302 coroner’s budget.
   
Reed doubts the county will use the nursing home facility for a morgue
because the holding room is in the basement. Reed said regulations require a
separate entrance for a morgue, so an elevator would have to be built to move
bodies from ground level to the basement.
   
Reed estimates building an elevator would cost $150,000.
   
“This (constructing the morgue) is so far away that nothing on it should be
out right now,” Reed said. “We have 83 acres here and I’d like to see a
concrete building, separate from our building, built because it would be
cheaper.”
   
Before any construction begins, the state Department of Health must approve
the site. Health officials will study the effect a morgue will have on Valley
Crest residents, Reed said.
   
“My concern is the impact it will have on the residents we have now,” Reed
said. “With a suspicious death comes all the television camera crews and the
people don’t need that.”
   
Klein said, in any case it’s time the county owns a facility.
   
Without shower facilities at Mercy Hospital in Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County
Coroner Dr. George Hudock now performs autopsies only at Kniffen Funeral Home.
   
“Somewhere down the line we need to be masters of our own destiny because
we lose control if someone decides to up the rates,” Klein said. “It’s a good
investment (a county-owned morgue) and you like to be proprietor controlling
your own funds.”
   
Kniffen doesn’t charge the county for using its facilities, but “nothing is
forever,” Klein said.
   
In Luzerne County, about