From March to April, there were two reported Wisconsin hospital closings — Sacred Heart in Eau Claire and St. Joseph’s in Chippewa Falls —  and 17 clinic closings, according to The Cap Times. The closings have produced ripple effects, impacting other cities like La Crosse and Madison, according to The Cap Times.

Due to the closures, doctors in Eau Claire and Madison have been concerned about securing patient care and being able to help those who do not live in a town with an efficient hospital or clinic, according to The Cap Times.

The speculated reason for the hospital and clinic closings is that they did not have enough funds to continue operating, director of Wisconsin Office of Rural Health John Eich said.

“They [Eau Claire’s healthcare systems] withdrew back certain operations in the western areas, as it is what they felt was the stronger choice economically as a result of struggles from the coronavirus pandemic,” Eich said.

The closures came after financial stress related to the lingering impacts of the pandemic and inflation, according to the Wisconsin Public Radio.

Both Sacred Heart and St. Joseph’s Hospitals were a part of one of three healthcare systems in Eau Claire, Eich said. They had two bases of operations, both in the eastern part of the state, around Green Bay, Fox River Valley and then those in the western area, Eich said.

The healthcare market is highly competitive, with many economic factors influencing the payor mix in healthcare systems, Eich said

Payor mix data represents the breakdown of revenues, charges, discharges and patient days from different medical insurance payors, according to Health Care Insights.

“In other words, the payor mix is what involves when one sees patients and then determines how the patient is going to pay for those services,” Eich said.

Patients may pay through private insurance or maybe they have no insurance and rely on Medicaid or Medicare, so the different payment methods can impact how healthcare workers get paid, Eich said.

All of the patients who relied on either of the two hospitals or the 17 clinics as their primary health providers have had to shift to another provider, Eich said. 

Two other big healthcare systems in Eau Claire — Mayo Clinics and Marshfield Clinics — have stepped in to help welcome more patients, Eich said.

Both Mayo and Marshfield Clinics have scrambled to accommodate both incoming and existing patients and create appointment openings, but there are longer wait times to get into see a provider, Eich said.

Surgeries and other special treatments are delayed — all of which impact patients and their health outcomes, Eich said.

Many of the providers who lost their jobs due to building closures were able to be hired by competing systems, but providers still had to adjust to those new systems — especially with higher patient loads than before, Eich said.

More people are coming in the emergency room door and more beds are being filled in the remaining hospitals and clinics, so every day is full and patients must schedule appointments further in advance to be able to receive healthcare, Eich said.

Some patients have traveled to other regions for healthcare such as to the Twin Cities, Duluth, Madison or La Crosse, Eich said.

The patients have to drive further and wait longer and the providers are busier than ever, so it is a stressful time for everyone, Eich said.

The closings have made what would usually be easy access to healthcare more difficult for people in need — especially those who must receive immediate care in emergencies, Eich said.

“Even here in Madison where there are a vast number of clinics, people are booking out a year for a specialist appointment — up to a year of waiting,” Eich said. “… So you can imagine someone who now was going to go to their local clinic, but has to go to this other one and how far out they’re booked.”

The closures also impact the incoming generations of nurses, doctors and future providers, Eich said.

University of Wisconsin junior and pre-med student Sofia Merigk said she is planning to apply to medical school but has concerns over the recent closings.

“I am from Eau Claire and I grew up going to Sacred Heart Hospital,” Merigk said. “I had operations performed on me there and so with it closing a lot of people, especially my dad who is in the medical field did a lot of operations there and they had to find new places to get the same work done.”

Merigk said she grew up going to Sacred Heart Hospital which allowed her to see, from a patient’s perspective, how the closings have been impacting her community.

But, Merigk’s father was one of the doctors who would perform operations at Sacred Heart Hospital, so she has also seen how providers are losing a space to do their work, she said.

UW senior Reid Koeppel said he hopes to pursue the university’s nursing program and though he said he was not aware of the closings, he is aware of the impacts the closings can have on communities.

“Working on the hospital force can be very overwhelming, especially when patients are constantly flowing in,” Koeppel said. “You don’t really have a chance to just sit down and gather yourself to figure out what’s going on. And when it comes to healthcare, that is a problem.”

Both Koeppel and Merigk said these closings are discouraging as the students continue to work towards becoming a part of the healthcare system.

Through these hospital closures, medical schools are going to have fewer positions to fill with fewer institutions to send their students, Merigk said.

Putting more time into Medical College Admissions Testing and prerequisites is a constant stressor put on medical students and seeing the closings of clinics and hospitals in their area is a discouraging factor, Merigk said.

Medical students are learning the underlying stressors behind nurses and healthcare professionals — especially in today’s changing face of healthcare, Koeppel said.

“Every nurse I talk to talks about how overwhelmed they are,” Koeppel said. “How difficult their job is, how there is not enough staff. It all really is discouraging, but healthcare is something that I am passionate about. So though it is discouraging in a way, I also want to put my best foot forward and do the best that I can.”