Marisa Wojcik:
Tell me what you have learned about the impact of HSHS closing in the Chippewa Valley and the Prevea clinics closing.

Rep. Karen Hurd:
As far as the impact, I consider this to be huge. Not as big as the Maui fires, but certainly bigger than the East Palestine, Ohio train derailment, where they had the big chemical spill. It's bigger than that. I see it as bigger than that. People are, I see that people are going to die. And you'll say, "Well, how can people die?" You know, run 'em to Mayo, run 'em to Marshfield, take 'em up to Bloomer, run 'em over to, you know, down to La Crosse, the city, you know, take 'em over. But we're going to lose, 38% of our emergency care services came through the HSHS services. And so 38%, if you're one of the 38 emergencies, you're having a heart attack now, you need to get to a hospital. You could have been in Chippewa Falls, I'm thinking of St. Joseph's, you could be there in 5 minutes, 10 at the most. You are there, and they're working on you to revive you and to keep you alive. Now we have to drive all the way to Eau Claire, or are we gonna go up to Bloomer? And Bloomer's already overwhelmed. They're getting 8 to 10 more patients per day, and they were already saturated. And they're going, "Stop! We can't, we don't have a place for them. We don't know what to do." And so this is a major catastrophe for our area. I'm sick about it. I'm just sick about it. So we had 900 mothers give birth to babies just last year at Sacred Heart. We have over 900 mothers that are expecting. So we have to, you know, well, the other two health systems in Eau Claire. There's nothing in Chippewa Falls now. That was the only hospital in Chippewa Falls, is St. Joseph's, it's gone. What about all of the... I can't tell you how bad the mental health problem is in our country today, and in the state of Wisconsin. It breaks my heart. And we just had L.E. Phillips-Libertas Center. They do all the detox. Detox is incredibly tricky. You can die during detox. You can't just stop a drug, you know, and just survive. You can die. It is a very specific procedure. They close their doors on Friday. They're gone. They're gone. So places like Arbor Place, that's in Menomonie, that takes in people after their detox in other places, where are they going to send them? What are we going to do? And what do we do about the people that, you know, so oftentimes when you're struggling with mental health, you just need somebody to talk to, you know, to talk you down out of the tree. You know, we all get upset sometimes, and we just need someone to be a calming voice, you know, "You don't have to take your life, it's okay." What do we do? I mean, we're gonna lose people through suicide, drug overdose, emergency care, you know, that we didn't make it to the hospital in time. It is very, very, concerning is not even a strong enough word. I'm very, very upset about the whole thing.

Marisa Wojcik:
What should have been done differently?

Rep. Karen Hurd:
They should have contacted us ahead of time. The federal legislators, they called the congressman first, because they didn't know either. They got a two-hour notice. And then they called the state legislators next, the CEO of HSHS. They called us, and they gave us an hour-and-a-half notice. "Could we, you know?" And they said, "Do you have questions?" "Yes, I have questions. Did you try partnerships? Have you tried affiliations? Did you try? Did you come to us as a government for possible, you know, help loans, did you?" There was no... "We did all that. No, we're done. We're finished with western Wisconsin. We wanna assure you that we're gonna stay in eastern Wisconsin, but we're done." It's just like, we're reeling. It takes time to, you know? And besides the 1,400 people that are out of a job, I mean, that's grievous enough, but it's the people that won't get the care that is most upsetting. 'Cause when you're hurting, or, you know, elective surgeries, forget them, they're out the window. You know, you just have to be in dire shape, and then hopefully we can get you somewhere to keep you alive. This is not good.

Marisa Wojcik:
What do you think should happen going forward?

Rep. Karen Hurd:
We have to help in some way. And so my colleagues and I, we are doing everything that we can at this level. And hopefully we'll see something come out. But we have to get the governor to work with us, we have to get the legislator behind us. But I want you to know that the state representatives for the Chippewa Valley, we are living, breathing this every moment and trying to come up with something, something to be able to help.

Marisa Wojcik:
The governor was up in Eau Claire on Monday.

Rep. Karen Hurd:
He was there Monday morning, yes.

Marisa Wojcik:
What do you think about the statements that he made to the public?

Rep. Karen Hurd:
I was a little disappointed. We have to help them. And, I mean, one of his statements was that, you know, he wouldn't want to give any money to a private, like OakLeaf. OakLeaf is a private for-profit organization, and I understand that. I want to be able to, any organization that will step up and open an emergency room in Chippewa Falls so that we don't have people dying before they can get someplace. We need to be able to come up with a way, you know, whether... Something, something. Because someone's gonna have to step up, or... I can't step up. I don't know how to take care of someone's heart attack. I certainly don't have a facility. But I will do everything I can at the legislative level to make something happen. And I will tell you, we are working behind the scenes here. We can't release anything yet, but I will tell you, we are working. I even had a meeting last night with my colleagues. It's just like, "So where are we on this? Have we got this set? What are we going to do? When are we going to make this public?" You know, we are working.

Marisa Wojcik:
Is there anything that you can tell people about when relief might be on the horizon?

Rep. Karen Hurd:
So much is dependent on if someone will pick up the pieces, you know, like OakLeaf. Oh, I hope that it goes through with OakLeaf, but, I mean, it's been a week and a half now that they've been negotiating and nothing is coming up, and then it's just like, someone will have to step up to the bat and, you know, say, "Sure, I'll manage it." I mean, you have to have a skillset and an administrative, you know, backbone, and organization to be able to run an emergency room and do these care. You know, just a person off the street can't say, "Sure, I think I'll run a hospital." You know, we have to have people there, and I don't know where they are and if, you know, will they step up?

Marisa Wojcik:
When Marshfield Clinic opened a number of years, or Marshfield Clinic Hospital opened a number of years ago, there was a lot of concern from the community, and particularly people at Sacred Heart, about, "Are we now oversaturating the market? What is gonna happen?" Do you think that was part of the domino effect here?

Rep. Karen Hurd:
I think that it had something to do with it. I think the economy has something to do with it, the workforce has something to do with it. I mean, you know, our economy has blown up. I mean, everybody knows that. With inflation, everything has gone up. Specifically HSHS, when I asked the question, what was it, they did mention that COVID was... They were already losing money before COVID, but COVID just went and shot 'em right out of the park. I mean, they lost... You know, on HSHS's behalf, I understand. There were huge amounts of money lost, you know? So, and then Marshfield is not... I mean, you might have seen it already in the news, Marshfield is also losing money. They're at a negative 27%, you know? And so Mayo is the only one that is just breaking even. They're not making money, they just got their head just above water, you know? So the whole industry, the whole healthcare industry is hurting. So that was definitely part of it. COVID is a part of it, the economy is a part of it, the workforce is a part of it. There's so many things that came in. And I do want to say this about HSHS: They have been in the Chippewa Valley for 140 years. They were there when nobody else was there. They have always been there. And they have always taken care of the poor and the hurting. You know, they've done a really good job. I'm sorry to see them go.

Marisa Wojcik:
What do you think this says about the state of health care in rural areas, where there's an aging population, and there is just a higher and higher need and lower and lower access?

Rep. Karen Hurd:
Yeah, it is a problem that we're facing. I mean, we discuss that in this legislative body all the time. What can we do as far as legislation? I mean, we're passing bills, like, "OK, to incentivize doctors to go out into rural clinics, you know, we'll pay for your education if you will stay there for a certain number of years." You know, and pharmacists, we just passed a pharmacy bill like that. I mean, we're doing everything we can to entice people into the rural area in these health care fields, and stay there and help us. You know, and then we have a terrible problem in the rural areas with EMS services. That's why we have bills to address that, too. Because the further you get out, the longer it takes to get the ambulance there than to get you back to someplace that they can take care of you. I mean, it is... Yes, this is a problem that we are looking at every day. We're not ignoring this. Our head is not in the sand. We are doing everything we possibly can. And I'm open, anybody, Chippewa Valley, whoever's listening to this, you've got ideas. Call me, or your legislator if I'm not your legislator or not. Even if I'm not your legislator, call me if you've got some great ideas, so that we can say, "Brilliant, let's make it a law. Let's do it." You know? [chuckles] Yeah.

Marisa Wojcik:
All right, Representative Hurd, thanks so much.

Rep. Karen Hurd:
Thank you very much, Marisa.