Santee

Improvements at San Diego County’s Edgemoor Geriatric Hospital will be speeded with the approval Thursday of a $6-million low-interest loan from the California Health Facilities Authority, state officials said.

The county could get the money within two months, shortly after bonds are sold to finance the loan, according to Assemblyman Larry Stirling (R-San Diego).

The money will go toward modernization of electric wiring, lighting and plumbing systems; replacing the air-conditioning system; new hospital beds; a nursing signal system, and improvements in the kitchens.

The physical condition of Edgemoor, parts of which were built as a county poor farm in the 1920s, has been a major issue in the continuing criticism of the hospital, where the county’s poor elderly and invalids go when they have nowhere else to turn.

State Department of Health Services officials announced Tuesday that improvements already made by the county at Edgemoor were enough to allow the continued funding of patients there by the federal Medicare and state Medi-Cal programs.