Round 2 belongs to Marshfield Clinic after the Minocqua Town Board voted unanimously Tuesday, March 7th to recommended approval of Marshfield Clinic’s hospital plans over objections by Howard Young Medical Center officials. The board’s approval comes on the heels of a similar recommendation by the town plan commission to issue a conditional use permit, which Marshfield Clinic needs in order to build a 12-bed hospital adjacent to its Minocqua clinic and ambulatory center.
Supervisor John Thompson told the parties that it wasn’t the job of the town board to “pick winners and losers” in the marketplace. “I feel for the two organizations,” he said. “You guys are going to duke it out here, and that’s not our business. Our business is to either approve or disapprove of the CUP.”
After giving examples of local competition, i.e. Kwik Trip and Wal Mart that came to Minocqua – he told Howard Young representatives, “You have to evolve.” Supervisor Bill Stengl agreed on not picking winners: “I don’t know if we have much say over competition in any marketplace. At the end of the day our job will is to decide the merits of the conditional use permit.”
About 150 people attended the meeting – it had to be moved from the boardroom to the gymnasium -- where arguments for and against the proposal lasted more than two hours. Both sides had a large contingent of supporters, mostly employees from the two medical providers. The county planning and development committee will schedule a public hearing in Minocqua -- likely the first week of April -- for public input before making a decision on the CUP.
The arguments made by the two medical providers mirrored those they had made at the plan commission. Marshfield Clinic’s Regional Medical Director Dr. William Melms said “competition is good” and another hospital won’t harm the “general welfare and health of the community.”
Representatives Howard Young with its parent company Ascension Health Care argued that a second hospital would diminish medical services to the greater Woodruff/Minocqua area. “The idea of two hospitals in a rural area that’s not growing needs careful consideration,” HYMC President Sandy Anderson told the board. Both providers said that they provide care to the indigent and underserved. Both also said they are locally focused, with decisions makers coming from the local community. Both provided legal and medical representatives to further argue their case. Several people from the audience also came to the microphone to either talk about their experiences with Howard Young and Marshfield Clinic, or about the impact – pros and cons -- the new hospital would have on local medical services.
Howard Young tried to drive a wedge of doubt by noting the commercial and exchange insurance products that Marshfield Clinic does not accept at their clinic. Marshfield Clinic responded, in part, by saying the hospital would, by federal law, accept anyone who sought emergency services. In the end, it was clear that the board was unwilling to enter the fray over market share of healthcare. Stengl bemoaned the fact that the two providers appear unwilling to continue to partner in providing health services as currently being done. The majority of physicians who now practice at Howard Young are Marshfield Clinic employees. Supervisor Sue Heil, who chairs the plan commission, said commissioners agreed that the CUP application appears to meet county zoning requirements, including the general standard of not harming the community’s general welfare, health and safety. Heil asked about HYMC President Sandy Anderson’s assertion at the plan commission that Howard Young would go forward with renovation of its hospital even if Marshfield Clinic builds its hospital.
Debra Standridge, president of Ascension Wisconsin’s Northern Region Hospitals, said the level of “construction and renovation” work planned for this year would depend on the outcome of the Marshfield Clinic hospital plans. The board vote was unanimous on Thompson’s motion to recommend approval of the CUP, with an added stipulation that the county look at potential traffic issues on Townline Road if another driveway access to Marshfield Clinic was opened there. The main entrance would be off State Highway 70 W.
The county is also going to review the request to have a helicopter-landing pad at the site.
