It’s going to take a little longer to finalize the sale of the old River Valley Hospital Ironton campus to Our Lady of Bellefonte Hospital.

Charles Cooper, attorney for Lawrence County General Hospital and its Board of Trustees, said OLBH officials had asked that the finalization be pushed back to the first week of September to accommodate OLBH’s fiscal purposes.

&uot;We said if they would pick up the cost of security, utilities and insurance for that month, this would keep us from having to put more monies into the campus,&uot; Cooper said. &uot;We asked them to do this and they readily agreed.&uot;

The finalization had been slated for early August.

The finalization of the sale of the old Portsmouth Receiving Hospital to Southern Ohio Medical Center for $1. 7 million was finalized July 8.

This leaves three parcels of land that have yet to be sold: property near the intersection of State Route 141 and US 52, the clinic at Aid, and a medical office at Sixth and Pine Streets.

Once the sale of the Ironton campus to OLBH is complete, Cooper said he expects more attention will be focused on a class action lawsuit filed by former hospital employees.

When the hospital closed, many employees had accumulated vacation days and holidays and sick days for which they were neither paid nor were able to use.

There is also the issue of outstanding medical bills for employees. The hospital had a self insurance system, and employees’ claims were sent first to the hospital, and after it closed, to individual former workers for payment.

&uot;The employees have been very patient and I can’t say enough good things about them,&uot; Cooper said.

Local officials met late last week before Special Judge Everett Burton. Teresa Moore/The Ironton Tribune