Health cooperative hopes to reopen Chippewa Falls hospital next year

A regional health cooperative in the Chippewa Valley region is working to reopen one of the hospitals that was abruptly closed by Hospital Sisters Health System this spring.

The Chippewa Valley Health Cooperative signed a letter of intent with HSHS to purchase and reopen St. Joseph’s hospital in Chippewa Falls. The nonprofit group announced their plans at a public meeting Monday.

HSHS closed the facility on March 22, two months after the health system announced they were exiting western Wisconsin. The rapid shutdown shocked the community and left hundreds of people scrambling to find new health care providers and new jobs.

When the hospital closures were announced, OakLeaf Medical Network, a group of private physicians, publicly said they hoped to buy St. Joseph’s and Sacred Heart Hospital in Eau Claire in order to continue operating the facilities. The push is what led to the creation of the Chippewa Valley Health Cooperative in February.

The nonprofit group is working to build a new hospital facility in Lake Hallie, a Chippewa County community between Eau Claire and Chippewa Falls. But Mike Sanders, lead advisor to the cooperative and former hospital CEO, said when the opportunity to purchase St. Joseph’s came up, the group saw it as a way to offer health care services as soon as possible.

“The new hospital won’t be available until at least late 2027, which is a ways out for people waiting for care,” Sanders said. “We’re optimistic that if the St. Joe’s acquisition goes through, we can reopen it in 2025.”

Sanders said the cooperative will begin evaluating whether reopening the facility is financially possible early next year and plans to make a final decision in April. If the deal goes through, he said the cooperative could start hiring staff in summer and reopen next fall.

The facility would include an emergency department, labor and delivery and surgical services. Twenty-five hospital beds would be available, including five intensive care beds. The cooperative also said they would reopen the morgue, which was previously used by the county coroner.

Chippewa County Administrator Randy Scholz said the news was “the biggest surprise” for community members at Monday’s meeting. He said the closure of St. Joseph’s has been devastating for many residents, from expecting mothers to cancer patients.

“Last night really helped people to see that, ‘Yep, we are going to get through this,’” Scholz said on Tuesday. “There is a light at the end of the tunnel, and we’re going to move forward and have very high quality health care.”

Scholz said the biggest impacts have been to emergency medical services in the area, especially those that rely on volunteers. He said a call that used to take an ambulance crew an hour to deliver a patient to St. Joseph’s can now take three to four hours because of the extra travel time to Eau Claire or other communities.

Last month, Aspirus Health from Wausau announced they are moving forward with plans to build a new emergency department and clinic in Chippewa Falls. The facility could open as early as spring of 2026.

Scholz said having two new facilities will give residents more choice in where they receive care and help fill unmet health care needs in the area.