WISCONSIN — HSHS Sacred Heart Hospital in Eau Claire and HSHS St. Joseph’s Hospital in Chippewa Falls shut down permanently on Friday as both HSHS and Prevea continue to move operations out of Wisconsin, leaving impacted communities to continue to search for alternatives.

"We continue to look for short-term solutions like engaging with new potential partners and looking at where the most significant gaps are that are least likely to be covered by private-sector partners that come into these communities," said Stephanie Hirsch, the Eau Claire city manager. "We're also looking ahead to longer-term efforts to think about how this could happen and how it can't happen again."

With the staggered shutdown of more medical facilities in the Chippewa Valley slated to take place into the summer, Hirsch said it's not just a health care gap that the closures leave behind.

"People are really just heartbroken about this," Hirsch said. "The connections are really strong and really deep, and what's kind of remarkable about it is that it [was] a mission-driven hospital and people know it to be a bedrock of the community."

Watch the full interview above.