Thursday, June 27, 2002 | 9:47 a.m.
There were times Jon Sias thought he'd never see this day.
The director of the state's veterans nursing home in Boulder City since 1999 has had to overcome a myriad of hurdles to get to the facility's opening Friday.
The building that spent two years on the drawing board while officials wrangled over funding and location has suffered numerous construction problems since it broke ground in July 1999. That has resulted in a two-year delay in its opening and and costs overruns of as much as $2 million.
"When crews started bringing in the beds and other furniture last week, I asked a member of my staff to pinch me," Sias, a disabled Navy veteran, said.
"I knew the day would come, but I couldn't believe I actually was looking at the light at the end of the tunnel. I'd be lying if I said there weren't dark days when I thought of giving up. But I knew it would be worth waiting for this moment."
Friday's 10 a.m. dedication ceremony will name the $21 million, 180-bed facility at 100 Veterans Memorial Drive after Capt. Michael Lewis Hyde, a 28-year-old Boulder City resident and Air Force pilot killed in the Vietnam War. Veterans officials and Gov. Kenny Guinn are scheduled to attend.
Still struggling with staffing issues, the home, with a waiting list of about 450 veterans, prepares to welcome by mid-July its first five test patients for Medicare accreditation -- a process that could take a couple of months before additional patients are admitted.
"Hiring nurses, especially LPNs (licensed practical nurses), has been a challenge," said Lynn Stange, a registered nurse who serves as the home's director of clinical services. "We will be opening with seven RNs working alternating shifts with one nurse per shift."
Stange, in addition to her administrative duties, will do nursing duties one late-night shift per week to guarantee 24-hour health care promised to the patients. Like all other workers, the nurses are state employees.
About 30 staff members in health care and administration are on board. When the facility is filled out, the staff will grow to 203, Sias said.
The nursing shortage is one of but a number of problems that has left stumbling blocks in the path of the facility's success, longtime veterans rights advocate Ed Gobel, head of the Council of Nevada Veterans Organizations, said.
"We envisioned a place where veterans could live out their last days with a high level of dignity and good health care," he said. "We did not get what we thought we were going to get, but we still want it to succeed."
Gobel and his supporters had sought "a custodial-intermediate care facility," which in effect is an old soldiers and sailors home. But since his arrival, Sias has strongly opposed such a concept, saying over and over, "this will not be the last stop on the bus route."
To that end, Sias said each patient will, upon check-in, be issued a discharge plan. He notes that the exercise paths amid the building's desert landscaping and the on-site physical rehabilitation center will help many of the ailing recover to be sent home to live more healthy final years.
The 81,800-square-foot facility also has come under heavy criticism from Gobel and others for its four-patients-per-toilet ratio instead of two. Sias says every phase of the home is in line with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
It will cost $10.4 million a year to run the home, including $5 million for salaries. About $3.8 million a year will come from the government.
To get on the waiting list and eventually be admitted, a person has to be a Nevada resident for 12 months, must have served 90 days in the armed forces and have a physician's note stating that 24-hour skilled-nursing care is required.
Naming the center after a hometown war hero might make some forget about the construction woes and other problems and give hope to a promising future.
"Capt. Hyde was a champion at everything he did -- as a Boulder City student, as a USAF officer and as a pilot who gave his life for his country," Sias said. "That exemplifies what we are all about. We want to be champions at what we are doing."
Sias has vowed that one day his facility will be the state-of-the-art benchmark for all skilled nursing homes in Nevada and perhaps in the nation.
Hyde, a Boulder City High graduate and the first Nevadan to graduate from the Air Force Academy, received the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Silver Star prior to his Dec. 8, 1966, mission where he flew his F-100 in support of boxed-in U.S. ground troops.
He dropped napalm on the Viet Cong, but was shot down in the jungles of South Vietnam. It would take a quarter of a century to find and return his remains to the United States. Hyde is buried on the grounds of the Air Force Academy.
"This honor is even more special than just any building being named for my brother because it is in Boulder City where I feel so grateful that we were raised," said Carol Hyde Lewis, of Belmont, Calif.
"I have always been so proud of what my brother did and I hope his name on this building will come to symbolize not only his contributions, but also those of all veterans of Boulder City, as my brother would have wanted it that way."
Lewis will be accompanied at Friday's ceremony by Michael's youngest daughter Gina Kuester of Danville, Calif., who was just a month old when Michael was reported missing in action. Michael's widow, Ann Casten of Corte Madera, Calif., and her husband, Al Casten, who raised Gina and Michael's eldest daughter, Kristen Casten, will join them. Kristen is unable to attend, Lewis said.
"My family wants to thank former Gov. Mike O'Callaghan for all he did in getting this honor for my brother." Lewis said.
O'Callaghan, now chairman of the Sun, championed that cause in his column and asked Guinn to have the Boulder City nursing facility named for Hyde.
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