Construction is ongoing at MHP

A cold, wet and foggy day wasn't slowing construction on the expansion project at Mahaska Health Partnership Monday

Oskaloosa, Iowa – Even with the cold weather, construction continues on the grounds of Mahaska Health Partnership.

Mahaska Health Partnership received official notice April 21 that their new building addition to house Surgery, Inpatient Services, and the Birthing Center will be financed with a direct loan of $23,015,000 from the USDA, of the nearly 25 million in total construction costs.

The updates to the hospital won’t include any additional bed capacity since MHP is considered a critical access hospital. MHP CEO Jay Christensen explained in an earlier interview, “We can only have 25, what would traditionally be acute or skilled service patients, and then we can have some outpatient patient observation. They might be overnight, they might be checking to see if they meet criteria for admission, or they might be in need of extra recovery from surgical procedure and then go on home in the morning.”

The surgery department will be upgraded during renovations to newer technology, allowing for a more sterile environment

So with the upgraded patient rooms, there will also be an upgraded birthing center. In that earlier interview, I had asked Christensen about the birthing center and why it was important to MHP to upgrade it’s facility. “First of all, a Birthing Center is probably the most competitive of the businesses that we have and so people really do compare the surroundings to other locations.”

“A lot of times if your very ill, you go where your doctors going to send you; It’s not nearly as competitive. It’s still competitive, but birthing centers are very different. You know your healthy, you can drive, you can make all kinds of decisions and, yeah, we think it’s absolutely critical, especially since the others around us, that still deliver babies, have all updated theirs in the last couple years.”