RHINELANDER – Minocqua is now back on track to have a $35 million hospital with 12 in-patient beds built adjacent to Marshfield Clinic’s Minocqua campus.
At its appeals hearing Thursday, the Oneida County Board of Adjustment agreed to issue Marshfield Clinic Health System a conditional use permit (CUP) to build the acute care facility, thus overturning the planning and development committee’s denial of the same request. Marshfield Clinic staff broke out in applause after the 4-1 vote
Marshfield Clinic Regional Director Dr. William Melms said they would now move forward with construction plans. “We are absolutely elated with the decision,” said Melms. “Now we begin more detailed planning on this. We have the architectural drawings to do. We got perhaps several months of planning with the expectation that we will dig a hole in the spring.” Asked about the new hospital construction timeline, Melms said: “It’s going to be between eight and 12 months. It could be a little longer I suppose.”
Marshfield Clinic won’t be allowed to build a helipad at the new hospital as requested (Howard Young has a helipad) and must route vehicular traffic to the State Hwy. 70 West entrance across from the high school. Residents along Townline Road had objected to more clinic traffic on that residential street.
Marshfield Clinic originally thought it would have the hospital ready by this winter. It had the backing of the Minocqua planning commission and the town board. But it ran into a buzzsaw of opposition when Ascension’s Howard Young Medical Center brought both attorney help and public opinion against the CUP issuance.
On June 14, 2017, the county planning and zoning committee on a 3-2 vote denied the conditional use permit. The majority said the CUP application did not meet a critical standard, one of nine that the county uses in assessing whether or not to issue a CUP. That one says, “The establishment, maintenance or operation of the conditional use will not be detrimental to or endanger the public health, safety, morals, comfort or general welfare.”
Board of adjustment chairman Harland Lee led off their deliberations, saying: “It’s hard to imagine that the establishment, maintenance or operation of a hospital will be detrimental or endanger the public health, safety, morals, comfort, and all the rest of that. That’s certainly not the way I look at a hospital.” Lee noted that the proposed hospital is a permitted use in a B1 business district. “I think it’s safe to say that the county would not sanction a use that would be contrary to the public interest,” Lee said, adding that the appeal board could not make its decision based on competition factors, nor on sentiment or emotion. Fellow board member Phil Albert, however, took the opposite view and voted against the CUP application. He relied on the other panel’s denial of the CUP request. “What was recognized by the Oneida County planning and development committee was that there would be a destabilizing -- if there hasn’t been already -- of the healthcare provided here in the Lakeland community. And that destabilizing is critical as it can and may be detriment to this community.” He also agreed with Ascension-Howard Young that it would be difficult to find adequate staff for those two hospitals.
The 72,000-square-foot Minocqua hospital will be built just a few blocks from Howard Young. Ascension contends that the new hospital would be a “micro-hospital,” but Marshfield Clinic counters that it would provide the same services, if not more, that Howard Young currently provides. The Minocqua hospital would have a surgery center, birthing center, emergency room services, imaging and lab. Ascension-Howard Young also said those plans would cause financial hardship to its operations. However, Ascension officials have said they would keep Howard Young open despite that competition. Ascension-Howard Young centered its main arguments on the belief that the greater Minocqua/Woodruff market could not support two hospitals, with Howard Young on the losing side. Its emergency services, including medical helicopter, would take a hit they testified in previous hearings. “A new and shining hospital won’t solve the (difficulty in) recruitments of physicians,” said Howard Young President Sandy Anderson.
Nearly all the doctors at Howard Young are Marshfield Clinic employees. But a Marshfield Clinic official overseeing staffing said they could fill any open positions. Melms said they expect to add 50 new non-physician support staff to the new hospital. He earlier had said they may need a few more doctors, but most would come from current staff. In addition, Melms has pointed out that Ascension is one of the nation’s largest healthcare providers and with its deep pockets could easily meet any competitive marketing forces. Anderson declined an interview after the vote, saying she had another appointment to make. But in a prepared statement Ascension-Howard Young said they were “disappointed” in the board of adjustment’s decision, claiming the CUP would lead to a “duplication of healthcare services provided to the community.” “We will need to review this decision internally before making any decision about future action,” the statement added.
The only apparent option left to challenge the ruling would be for Ascension to seek remedy in Oneida County Circuit Court. Asked about the current relations between the two medical providers, Melms thought fences could be mended between the two: “The reality is that there’s been tension for months. I’m hoping now that we have resolution, that all that tension will go away.” There is a $5 million dollar renovation and new construction project underway at Howard Young, which currently staffs some 40 in-patient beds. The scope of any further upgrades likely rests on the outcome of the Marshfield Clinic’s hospital project, Anderson has said earlier.
The public hearing took just over five hours with the board of adjustment deliberating in open session for another 45 minutes before its final vote. The board agreed to record all previous testimony and records, including those of the Minocqua planning commission, town board and the county planning and development committee. Assistant corporation counsel Mike Fugle noted the board had received some 2,600 pages of testimony from an earlier public hearing and other legal and sundry documents. However, the parties brought in another batch of reading material Thursday.
