Request By:
Mr. Sam W. Moore III
Green County Attorney
P.O. Box 146
131 North Public Square
Greensburg, Kentucky 42743
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
You request our opinion on a question relating to a hospital district. The question reads:
"Do the provisions, rules and regulations laid out in KRS 216.310 to 216.360 apply to a hospital and its board set up under KRS 216.010 and not set up as a hospital 'district'?"
KRS 216.010 provides that any county containing a city of the second, third, fourth, or fifth class may, through its fiscal court, establish a hospital for the county. Related and implementing statutes were KRS 216.020, 216.030, 216.040, 216.050, and 216.060. KRS 216.010 and the related statutes were expressly repealed in 1978 [1978 Acts, H.B. 152, Ch. 118, § 19]. House Bill 152 dealt with county government and, inter alia, amended KRS 67.080 and 67.083, relating to powers of the fiscal court. We find that in lieu of KRS 216.010, we now have KRS 67.083(3)(d), which expressly grants the fiscal courts the power to enact ordinances establishing county hospitals.
A county hospital established under KRS 216.010 continues as a county hospital, the source authority having been switched from the old KRS 216.010 to the present KRS 67.083(3)(d). Thus any fiscal court in Kentucky can now establish a county hospital. See Demunbrun v. Browning, 311 Ky. 71, 223 S.W.2d 372 (1949) 374. In Demunbrun, above, the court characterized the old KRS 216.010, et seq., (1920 Act) as a special procedure in certain counties for the establishing of a county hospital. But the court said that the special procedure militated in no way against the general authority of fiscal courts to establish county hospitals under KRS 67.080. That general authority is now found, as we said, in KRS 67.083.
The statutes, KRS 216.310 through 216.360, relate to a hospital district, but not to a "county hospital" established under KRS 216.010, 67.080 or 67.083(3)(d).