Western Wisconsin Health hosts groundbreaking ceremony for expansion

Western Wisconsin Health hosted a groundbreaking ceremony on Saturday in Baldwin, Wis. to celebrate expansions to its hospital that will help combat various problems surrounding the rural hospital landscape.

The hospital’s groundbreaking was for an obstetrics and surgical expansion to the complex. Dr. Dennis Hartung, who joined Western Wisconsin Health when it was known as Baldwin Area Medical Center around nine years ago, talked about the impact of those additions. 

“Part of that vision was, let’s improve women’s health care services in our area, and most importantly birth,” Hartung said of original expansion plans. 

“The addition that you see coming up … is an anomaly in rural health care. Rural health care communities, if anything, are shutting down, are closing their birth centers, as you’ve heard. But we, we are not.”

In rural areas, birth centers shutting down can be an issue. More than two million women of childbearing age live in maternity care deserts, counties with no hospitals or birth centers that offer obstetric care and no OB providers, as reported by the AP. And the majority of these areas are rural. 

Health Affairs conducted a study that suggested rural residents have a 9% greater probability of facing life-threatening complications or even death from pregnancy and birth compared to those in urban areas. And the U.S. remains the developed country with the highest maternal mortality rate, according to multiple studies and reports.

“And we’re not sure why. But we are working to correct that,” Hartung said of the mortality rate. “One of the things we know which will help with some of that is to not limit access.”

Wisconsin state Senator Tammy Baldwin also spoke during the groundbreaking ceremony. Baldwin helped secure a $1 million congressionally directed spending grant for the hospital expansion. 

“Too often I hear from Wisconsinites in rural communities who are faced with very limited health care options,” Baldwin said. “The scarcity of options forced Wisconsinites to delay or forgo care that they need or take long drives, experience long wait times, to see a provider.”

In 2016, the hospital opened a new facility and rebranded to Western Wisconsin Health. The old Baldwin Area Medical Center, now a vacant lot, will become a Kwik Trip gas station, per the Baldwin Bulletin.