Once upon a time (Yesterday)
Nearly every day at the local coffee shop you can hear an old timer talk about “the way things used to be.”
Once upon a time there were two hospitals serving Devils Lake and the entire Lake Region; General Hospital (where I was born in 1952) and Mercy Hospital. The doctors who provided services at those hospitals and the two different clinics downtown had names like Corbett, Toomey, Mahoney, McBane, Lazarus, Fawcett, Greves, Pine, Eizenberg, Rosen, Schaffer, Panuatt (not sure HOW this was spelled), and Rada. There were other doctors and surgeons, of course, through the years both before the 50s and going back, all the way to the early 1900s who served Devils Lake and the surrounding area.
Devils Lake was the center of a much wider region for healthcare and commerce.
Many remember downtown Devils Lake’s Main Street, 4th Street NE, used to have two movie theaters, two or three hardware stores, maybe four grocery stores (Piggly Wiggly, Red Owl, National T and Leevers), two bakeries; Carlson’s and Cox’s; a number of restaurants, bars and department stores; Montgomery Wards, JC Penneys, Manns and S & L, just to name a few of the stores and businesses that lined both sides of the city’s historic Downtown.
Eventually, though, there have been changes, many changes, to the city’s downtown and, yes, to the healthcare provided the country’s residents.
Back to the present (TODAY)
At recent meetings, round table discussions and “Town Hall” type sessions North Dakota Senator John Hoeven and local leaders, like former Mayor Dick Johnson and present Mayor Jim Moe, have been trying to get a handle on what the city has now for medical services and what it needs in that area. They’ve been assisted in this quest by Altru President Josh Deere, CEO of Altru Dr. Todd Forkel; Dr. Mark Thompson and Andrew Askew from Essential Health and Tim Bricker, CEO of this region’s CommonSpiritHealth that now owns the Devils Lake hospital.
With that in mind I sat down recently with Mariann Doeling, CEO of CHI St. Alexius Hospital Devils Lake to discuss the Devils Lake’s hospital, what it does offer now and some of the changes coming in the days, weeks, months and years ahead.
She introduced me to Dr. Dueber who has served as the Emergency Room Physician here since 2013. He works 12 hour shifts, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. and stays right in the hospital in an apartment they provide him upstairs in the hospital. He’s here 12 days a month, every month, and has been returning here for over 11 years.
Plans and wishes for the future (Tomorrow)
Dueber said he’s from Washington state, that’s home, but enjoys his work in Devils Lake, stating he and the staff of the ER see from 650 to 800 patients a month and sometimes it’s “feast or famine.” One thing he pointed out in his “wish list” is for the Devils Lake hospital to be able to recruit more physicians and especially staff trained in dealing with behavioral health issues.
It’s not like the 1940s, or 50s when doctors moved to a community and served the people there for 20, 30 years. Medicine has changed dramatically since then and not just in Devils Lake, it has changed across the entire country.
Doeling has the same item on her “wish list” for the hospital – to recruit more physicians, “the right physicians.” And they have been looking, trying to hire the staff they need in several areas in the hospital.
With the renovations happening in the hospital, when the new ER is ready, they will be looking for more doctors and ancillary staff to meet the needs. She feels doing these renovations should make it a little easier to recruit staff to Devils Lake, as they modernize the facility.
Presently about 90% of those who come to the ER at the Devils Lake Hospital are seen and treated here. The more serious cases, once stabilized, they do transfer to Altru in Grand Forks because theirs is a level 5 trauma center, with an ICU and access to specialty consults, internists and a cardiac cath lab. The Devils Lake ER is not equipped to handle the more serious cases.
Doeling is excited about some recent purchases the hospital has made like the improved nuclear medicine scanner to be operated by Lynn Imel, Interim Director of Radiology.
Soon they will be moving the old MRI out to prepare that area for a new MRI – a state-of-the-art MRI – but before the replacement is in place the weather needs to cooperate because it will mean opening the side of the hospital building and replacing concrete that needs to set when temperatures are not fluctuating as dramatically as they are presently.
Other items on Doeling’s “wish list” are a surgeon, maybe two, and they are looking for and negotiating for more new state-of-the-art equipment for the new spaces created when the ER expansion and renovation is completed.
Next on her “wish list” is an operating room, or two, maybe more?
Presently here at the Devils Lake hospital we do have 24/7 OB coverage working cooperatively with Altru physicians, pediatrics and family practice providers. That has been a blessing for the community, one rarely seen anywhere else.
Traveling providers help in Respiratory Therapy, OR, ER, Radiology, Med Surgery, and OB – that’s typical for the central region of which Devils Lake Hospital is a part. It is very expensive, however, and only a temporary solution to staffing shortages.
“Growing our own” providers is perhaps the most encouraging source that Doeling is pursuing as local students attend medical school and radiology programs she hopes to bring them to Devils Lake Hospital as part of their training and education in hopes that they will “give back” to the community by serving our hospital for a period of time and maybe eventually want to live here and provide services here on the longer term. She said they are already in talks with Lake Region State College and their apprenticeship program to help potential providers get part of their schooling paid for with a two to three year commitment to work here at Devils Lake’s hospital.
There are many moving parts in all of this, no definite timeline when all will be finished and all the needs are met at Devils Lake Hospital, however, to see progress being done is encouraging, or should be to all involved, even us “old timers” who remember the “good old days” when Devils Lake had a fully functioning, successful 100+bed hospital staffed by local physicians and surgeons who were our neighbors and friends.
Perhaps one day we will see something similar to that again, but a more modern, 21 Century, example of that scenario.
Editor’s Note: This story was written by someone (me) who has little to no medical knowledge or expertise, therefore some of the content above might be not exactly explained correctly. I did my best! — Louise
