You
In a gut punch to rural health care in Northwest Wisconsin, medical clinics in 10 communities and two hospitals have announced they are shutting down, resulting in the loss of more than 1400 staff and physicians. One state legislator from the region called it devastation.
The health care provider said the decision was the result of financial stress related to things including lingering impacts of the pandemic, inflation and workforce shortages. One of the clinics and St. Joseph's Hospital in Chippewa Falls will close.
That city's Mayor Greg Hoffman says he was not given notice of the closures. He joins us now and Mayor. Thanks very much for being here.
It has a good morning. So what was your reaction when you learned of these closures?
Well, the history. I knew that St. Joe's Hospital had been having some financial issues and they were looking to market it. And so that wasn't a complete shock is just the fact that there was no advance notice.
All of a sudden, I get an email sent to me about 1100 12 informing me of all the closures. And I was, yeah, very, very shocked by the whole events. And really, the thing that shocked me the most was that sacred heart and purveyah clinics were shutting down.
We had worked around St. Joe's. We were trying to come up with something, but having these other clinics, it is. It's just a devastation for the community.
Because what will it mean? What will it mean for your country? Well, you know, right now, we're trying to figure out where we go.
Sacred Heart Hospital and St. Joe's accounted for approximately 40% of the beds and the medical care in the Chippewa Valley.
So where do you go with 40%? I mean, we have Marshall Clinic yet. We have Oakleaf surgical and then you have Mayo Luther, but they only have so much capacity.
And so that's, to me, is real question is, what do we do? Chippewa Falls is blessed with an extremely large senior population.
We have about 30% of our population is over the age of 65. And of course, coming with that over 65, it's health issues.
And that was what was nice about Sacred Heart and St. Joe's. So where do we go now? And then in addition to that, you've got all the employees.
You've got the whole economy. I mean, it's just a ripple effect. Just use an example. Our police department pick up somebody 11, 30 night.
We wouldn't take a breathalyzer. They would take him to St. Joe's to do a blood draw to check your alcohol level.
Now they're going to have to drive to Eau Claire. So it's going to be additional time to the squads off the streets.
All the additional travel and all of a sudden that starts to compound. So we'll have less officers being able to cover what they should be doing by their driving people down to get blood draws.
How frightening is this? How frightening is this for you and people who live in the region?
You know, frightening is maybe a strong word. Right now we're trying to process all this.
I've had numerous conversations with medical. A number of people outside of the medical field. What does this look like?
And is it a strong concern? Yes. And we need to work through this to see what it's going to look like.
What's it going to look like when we get to the other side? How much can Mayo Luther handle? How much from Marshall handle?
I mean, right now we might have to go to the Bloomer Hospital, which is 15 miles north or a small hospital. The Aspirus and Stanley.
It's really hard to say. And so there's a lot of unknowns at this time that we're trying to get our arms around and not let our imagination go down the road too far.
How does Medicaid and Medicare reimbursement factor into these closures, do you think?
Well, you know, I was just visiting with someone from the hospital board and that is part of our problem.
Some of these facilities.
I wouldn't say that it was geared what they took.
A larger share of the Medicare and Medicaid than maybe some of some of the other facilities in the community.
And as you know, Medicaid, Medicare, the payment on that is considerably less than private insurance.
So that has definitely figured into the equation.
And that I wouldn't say that was the only reason, but it had a portion of what happened to these facilities.
You said that right now you're trying to work through these things with less than a half a minute left.
Have you been getting the answers or kind of the support you need to work through this and come out the other end?
Yes, everybody has been very cooperative. Everybody is.
You know, we're all looking for solutions to see what we can do.
You know, the upper of the triple valley is a very resilient community and I'm very confident we'll find it to the other side.
It's just getting there is where there's a lot of pain and frustration at this moment.
Yeah, well, Mayor Greg Hoffman, thanks very much and good luck.
Yeah, thank you.
Thank you, sir.
Appreciate it.
Yeah, thank you.
Yes, I wish I had more answers.
If you happen to find any answers, be sure and send them my way.
We will. We'll do that right away. All right. Thank you, sir.