(Update): UHD decides not to expand into Albert Lea; coalition responds to announcement

The Albert Lea Heathcare Coalition announced Thursday the United Hospital District of Blue Earth will not open a clinic in Albert Lea as previously announced earlier this year.

“We were informed that business conditions have suddenly changed for United Hospital District in Blue Earth and they have decided to withdraw their intent to open a clinic in Albert Lea,” the coalition posted on its Facebook page.

Trustees of the Albert Lea Healthcare Coalition in February announced they were negotiating leases with UHD to come to town for primary care and Mason City Clinic for specialty care in the coalition’s space at Northbridge Mall. At that time, the target date to open was Sept. 1 for UHD. Mason City Clinic opened in June.

Trustee Brad Arends said he and the other trustees on the coalition received an email from UHD CEO Rick Ash about the decision Aug. 8, while as recent as the previous week they had still been talking about opening the clinic by Jan. 1.

Arends said he tried reaching out to Ash immediately afterward but was unable to reach him so by Aug. 11 he sent an email saying he was hopeful UHD could consider possible alternatives.

While Ash responded back on Monday that he would be in contact soon, Arends said he has not yet heard back.

“I’m hoping that we can still have that conversation,” Arends said.

The coalition’s trustees had an emergency meeting the day after the announcement went out and met again on Thursday this week to discuss next steps and particularly whether to move forward with the Building for the Future Gala that is planned for Sept. 14 at the John and Susan Morrison Medical Plaza, which the coalition owns.

“We were all in such shock that … I think we all thought we’re going to have to cancel it again,” Arends said. “But then we continued to say what are the possible solutions here, and we elected to delay the decision until we were hopeful that we could get in front of UHD to go through other solutions.”

He said at the trustees’ meeting this week, they invited the members of the gala committee to come and give their input. Many were adamant about continuing forward with the event, and together they came up with reasons, including all the coalition has already achieved.

In addition to the physical building the coalition owns, including the state-of-the-art clinic space, Arends said there are several doctors and staff people working for UHD who live in Albert Lea but who would love to work in Albert Lea. There have also been contacted by several retired Mayo doctors who would like to work a couple days a week.

At the time MercyOne Medical Center pulled out of the coalition’s space, there were over 5,100 unique patients, and there are still several businesses that would like to have a business clinic there. There are other partners in the medical plaza, including the Mason City Clinic, which offers specialty services, including urology, ENT, podiatry, psychiatry and others, and the coalition also owns a X-ray machine it purchased from MercyOne.

“The people that are talking to us, they want choices,” Arends said. “So we looked at that and said this is why we have to continue. If we just threw in the towel … think of what we’ve already got. We’ve got the hard part done having the building, doctors and support staff who want to work in Albert Lea.”

The Albert Lea UHD doctors have not been impacted by the announcement and are still working in their positions in Wells or Blue Earth.

Arends said the next few weeks will be “interesting” as the coalition finds out if UHD would negotiate staying in Albert Lea or if another health system is interested in coming to town. He said he has already talked to one of two other potential systems they are looking into.

The coalition’s goal is to bring high-quality, conveniently accessed, affordable health care for the citizens of Albert Lea and the surrounding communities. The effort began in 2017 after Mayo Clinic Health System announced plans to transition several services to its Austin campus.

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