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Albert Lea Health Care Coalition president: ‘Now more than ever we have to get together as a community and fight for our health care’

MercyOne North Iowa Medical Center announced Wednesday it will close its Albert Lea location at the end of the year.

The health system, which opened the Albert Lea clinic in the former Herberger’s location in July 2021, cited the global pandemic, challenges in workforce recruitment and differences in regulations crossing into Minnesota as “unsurmountable” barriers, according to a statement.

The Albert Lea clinic is its only location in Minnesota, while the remainder of its system is in Iowa.

MercyOne said the organization must “reduce costs and redistribute resources to ensure we can continue to fulfill our mission to provide high-quality patient care.”

“These decisions are one part of an overall plan to address the economic realities of the fundamental shift in health care post-pandemic,” it said.

Albert Lea Healthcare Coalition President Brad Arends said the coalition, which owns the building and had worked to recruit MercyOne to town, also found out the news Wednesday after asking to meet with new senior leadership at MercyOne North Iowa.

The coalition had reached out to the health system several weeks ago because trustees were concerned about a lack of recruiting taking place for the clinic, he said. The clinic in recent weeks has only had one main family medicine provider who was only working part-time, and when patients called to make an appointment, they were told he was not taking any more new patients.

Arends said the coalition’s contact at MercyOne lined up a meeting for Wednesday, and then about 40 minutes before that meeting was set to take place, he received a call from part of the senior leadership team who told him effectively that because of a series of reasons the clinic was going to close Dec. 31.

They continued with the in-person meeting, and coalition trustees brought up some possible solutions and tried to sit down as a partner with MercyOne leaders and ask how the Albert Lea Healthcare Coalition and the city of Albert Lea could work with them to keep the clinic open, he said. He noted he left the meeting not being very optimistic about it and then found out shortly after that MercyOne had posted their decision to close and word started to spread.

He said while he was disappointed in the news, he is optimistic about the infrastructure the coalition has in place as it works to recruit another health system.

“Yes this is a surprise, yes it’s a step back, but think of what we have in place,” he said. “We have a finished clinic. It’s usable right now — and we have 5,000 unique patients.”

The grassroots effort to fight for health care in Albert Lea began in June 2017 after Mayo Clinic Health System in Albert Lea announced it would move inpatient surgery, childbirths, overnight hospital stays and intensive care to the Austin campus.

Residents began meeting weekly under a group called Save Our Hospital initially to convince Mayo to change its mind and restore services to the Albert Lea community. The group ultimately pivoted into Save Our Healthcare and then formed an official nonprofit called the Albert Lea Healthcare Coalition to fundraise and recruit a new provider to the city.

He said the coalition was responsible for the first $200 per square foot of the building costs, while Mercy was responsible for anything over that.

“We’ve been in this spot before, but now more than ever, the importance of affordable, high-quality health care is paramount to the citizens of Albert Lea,” Arends said.

The coalition trustees will begin making calls to the other health groups that showed interest in coming to Albert Lea previously when the coalition put out a request for proposals, including some from Mankato and Blue Earth. He also referenced HealthPartners, which currently operates the clinic in place for the school district and Freeborn County.

He said the coalition is also looking closely at the contract it had with MercyOne right now and will be contracting legal counsel that is experienced in health care law as it moves forward.

Albert Lea Mayor Rich Murray said he was out of town most of the day but heard about the news Wednesday evening.

“I’m very disappointed in the news,” Murray said. “Any time we lose an employer or services in the community, it’s a sad situation — and especially when it surrounds health care, a very vital service in our community.”

He said over the coming days and weeks, there will need to be talks and listening sessions with those involved in the community to determine where to go from here.

For now, Arends said, the coalition plans to continue with its gala planned for Oct. 7 in the John & Susan Morrison Medical Plaza and Northbridge Mall as commitments have already been made for bands, food vendors and others.

“We’re going to go on,” Arends said. “Our message is going to be now more than ever we have to get together as a community and fight for our health care.”

The Tribune is reaching out to MercyOne officials for more information about the decision. Check back for more information as it becomes available.