MERRILL, Wis. — The emergency department staff at Aspirus Merrill Hospital sees and treats a little bit of everything in the community of just under 10,000 people.
That includes Dr. Michael Clark.
“We’re a combined emergency department and urgent care, so we see everything from coughs, colds, sore throat types of things through cardiac arrest — the full spectrum,” he said. “We’re a critical access hospital so we see a wide spectrum of things. We generally don’t see bad trauma. Those go directly to Aspirus Wausau.”
Aspirus Health is planning a $40 million expansion and renovation of the hospital that is about 30 minutes north of Wausau.
“A patient being transported a half hour in and of itself probably isn’t a huge concern, but if their family has to drive down multiple times a day — and this is a much older population in general here,” Clark said. “If you have an elderly spouse or elderly children… having them drive an extra half hour to be seen, or even further depending on where we transfer them, that can be a huge burden on the family.”
The project is expected to double the number if inpatient bends from 10 to 20. Imaging, rehabilitation, laboratory and pharmacy services are also expected to be enhanced.
Dawn Gapko has worked in rural health care in northern Wisconsin her entire career. She’s now the chief administrative officer and chief nursing officer in Merrill.
“We have an original part of the building that’s from 1926,” she said. “This has been a long time coming and a project we’ve been looking forward to for several years.”
Work also includes reconstruction of patient rooms.
“We’re going to have the best technology brought here to our Merrill community,” she said. “We’ve had quite a bit of antiquated equipment here and in the last two and a half years we’ve already been updating a lot of that equipment. Now we’ll be able to update the infrastructure as well as the entire building in one way or another.”
Clark said the project bucks a wider trend in rural medical care.
“You don’t see hospitals opening up in rural areas. There’s a nationwide trend of rural hospitals closing. It’s a big concern,” he said. “You see these little hospitals popping up in metro areas. We don’t have little hospitals popping up all over rural Wisconsin. It’s important in the community to get that care here.”
