HAWARDEN, Iowa | Anticipation is building in the Sioux County area as a major modernization of the Hawarden Regional Healthcare hospital will be completed within the year.
Hawarden Regional Healthcare CEO Jayson Pullman in February said the project is on budget and on schedule.
"The project is making great progress, even though the weather has not been working in our favor. The construction crews are working hard to keep the project on schedule," Pullman said.
The expansion of the hospital will correct inefficiencies in patient care and more specialty care services will be offered to people using Hawarden Regional Healthcare.
The $14 million modernization of the eight-decades-old hospital building is slated to be done by December 2016. Some inpatient rooms were demolished to make room for the 22,000 square-foot expansion, which will house the Emergency, Radiology, Dietary, Laboratory and Surgery departments.
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Pullman said there's great enthusiasm particularly by the 82 hospital employees, since prior talks of improving the hospital collapsed.
"People are just so excited. It has been so many years that people have been talking about (a modernization). Nobody really realized it was actually going to happen. I kept telling them, 'We are going to get this done,' " Pullman said.
"(Employees) are really excited that they have a bright future. They know that Hawarden Regional Healthcare will be here for the next 25-plus years, with a new facility."
Hawarden has had a community hospital since 1914. The building constructed in 1936 is a few blocks northeast of downtown. It has been renovated a few times, including in 1965 and 1999.
The work involves moving services from the 1936 wing to the 1965 wing, with the oldest wing in the process of being demolished. New rooms are being added this year, and things will wrap up in 2016 when departments move into the new wing and the 1965 and 1999 wings are renovated.
"A lot of it is replacing old space with new space," Pullman said.
Crews in February have been erecting steel framing and sheeting the exterior, in order to apply heat to thaw the ground and get plumbers and electricians working inside. Plans include pouring concrete by the second week in March.
With the new elements, Hawarden Regional Healthcare will offer in-house mammography services for the first time, expand the surgical capacity, get rid of two-patient rooms and house more health care specialists.
Hawarden, with a population of 2,546, lies at the west edge of Sioux County near the South Dakota border. Farther east in the county are the cities of Sioux Center and Orange City, which each have hospitals.
Pullman said most of the patients come from north by Ireton, south to Akron and west into South Dakota, including the town of Alcester. But there is some competition with the other hospitals in the county.
Hawarden Regional HealthCare is a city-owned hospital, so all financing pieces have moved through the oversight of the city administrator's office. The initial cost estimate was for $11.3 million, but higher bids drove the project cost to $14 million.
Hawarden City Administrator Gary Tucker said the main revenue piece is a $8.8 million, 30-year loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development. Additionally, local fundraising delivered $2.5 million to the project. Loans from local banks will cover the other $2.7 million.
