Committee supports hospital feasibility study

CHIPPEWA FALLS — The Chippewa County Executive Committee has endorsed a plan to spend $70,000 toward a feasibility study on building a new hospital.

The committee met Tuesday afternoon, when members unanimously approved sending the funding request to the full County Board for approval.

Chippewa County Administrator Randy Scholz talked about the plans and why the study is needed to show a new hospital here could be successful. The study is expected to cost about $140,000, so the county is paying half the costs.

“We don’t know exactly where (a new hospital) would be, probably in northern Eau Claire County or southern Chippewa County,” Scholz told the committee. “They have to prove this hospital will work, to get bonding and investors. They’ve been working on their bylaws.”

Scholz said he has heard the potential location of the new hospital could be announced in August.

“It’s probably the most frustrating thing I’ve dealt with in my career, because we don’t have any authority over anything,” Scholz said.

The Chippewa Valley Health Cooperative, a nonprofit organization, “was formed to determine the feasibility of creating a community hospital in the Chippewa Valley to help address the healthcare void created by the HSHS and Prevea closures,” a Chippewa County resolution reads.

The feasibility study would be completed by a health care accounting firm to make recommendations as to how to move forward with the creation of the community hospital, including how to obtain the necessary financing for the project.

The county’s funding would come from the Land Development Fund and the Chippewa Valley Health Cooperative would be responsible to fund the remaining costs of the study.

Scholz reiterated that the goal is a new morgue would be included in the new hospital.

The resolution states the “Chippewa County Board of Supervisors believes that the residents of Chippewa County need and deserve a community hospital located in Chippewa County to meet the healthcare needs of our residents; and whereas to demonstrate its commitment to the creation of a community hospital in Chippewa County, the county board supports funding part of the cost of the financial feasibility study by providing $70,000 to the Cooperative for that study.”

HSHS St. Joseph’s Hospital officially closed its doors on March 22. Chippewa County now only has one hospital, in Bloomer; another hospital is located in the city of Stanley but sits in Clark County.