In March of this year, Hospital Sisters Health System announced it was closing Sacred Heart Hospital in Eau Claire and St. Joseph’s Hospital in Chippewa Falls.
While those hospitals are about 150 miles from Rhinelander, their closure is having an impact here.
“The wait list to get into some of the therapies is very long, which is unfortunate. That need is certainly increasing. We're seeing, particularly in 2024, a substantial increase,” said Mary Rideout. She’s the Oneida County Social Services Director and the interim director for the Human Service Center.
On top of a lack of providers, there’s now fewer facilities than there were a year ago that will take people experiencing a mental health crisis.
Rideout says Oneida County is fortunate to have both Aspirus Koller Behavioral Health Services in Rhinelander and North Central Healthcare in Wausau to serve patients. But when those fill up, the next closest were facilities in Eau Claire and Chippewa Falls.
With that now closed, people have to go to the mental health facility in Winnebago or even further to one near Madison.
“The impact for us is that, as there's just less services available in northern Wisconsin, the facilities that we're used to utilizing are probably going to be more full and less available. That's really where we support any additional mental health within the Northwoods,” said Rideout.
Following a similar resolution out of Polk County, where the impact of the closures is being felt even more, the Oneida County Board passed a resolution last week urging state legislators and the Governor to provide funding to establish an “inpatient acute behavioral health facility to serve counties in Northern Wisconsin.”
It also encouraged other county boards in Northern Wisconsin to join the lobbying effort.
The resolution passed with 18 in favor, three absent.
Rideout says her department is also focused on increasing the amount of community mental health services available.
That will be a top priority of the Human Service Center in 2025.
“I think that helps everybody in the long run, and we can, hopefully, avoid or prevent some of those hospitalizations,” said Rideout.
