New Davenport clinic construction progresses

DAVENPORT – Construction of the new Davenport healthcare clinic is continuing to make progress this summer after being stalled briefly in March due to Covid. Construction re-started in April and is “coming along nicely”, according to Lincoln Hospital Chief Executive Officer Tyson Lacy.

“The building is coming along nicely and is tracking for an on-time completion,” said Lacy. “We should be moved into the new clinic by summer of 2021.”

The new clinic will be attached to the hospital and replaces a rented space that the clinic has been using for the last 20 years. However, a move to more comprehensive, or wrap-around services for patients calls for more space, Lacy explained.

“We would like to start providing more comprehensive services for patients, including behavioral health and right now it’s logistically hard to fit everyone in the current space,” he explained. “We have six providers in the current building and we’d like to move up to eight.”

Lacy said the hospital district, which acts as a quasi-government entity, was financially poised to start the new project, as it just paid off a bond that had updated the heating, air conditioning and electrical systems in the hospital.

The new clinic is set to cost $8 million with $7 million of the cost being financed through bonds and $1 million coming from the hospital district’s reserve. Although the district had the option to ask the public for levy monies, Lacy said the “taxpayers are not on the hook” for the current project.

When completed, the new Davenport clinic will join Lincoln Hospital’s clinics in Reardan and Wilbur and Odessa Memorial Hospital.

Covid impacts

Lacy said the hospital district has weathered the mandatory shutdowns caused by the Covid-19 virus rather well, although the ban on elective procedures early in the spring did cause some financial losses.

“We were fairly aggressive in making sure that despite the shutdowns we did out best to serve the public. Overall health should not go by the wayside just because of the virus,” he noted. “We actually had our doctors calling patients to remind them of checkups.”

The hospital district experienced a $1.5 million drop in revenue from March to May. An infusion of $4.4 million in public funds via the Corona Aid Relief and Economic Security act has shored up hospital funds. The hospital district may not use all of the relief dollars, hospital staff noted, and is required to pay back 40 percent of the funds at the end of the year.

Since the ban on elective procedures has been revoked and lockdown orders are no longer in place, Lacy said that “right now there isn’t a lot of difference between pre-Covid and now” in terms of medical services.

Lincoln County has only had 10 cases of the Corona virus and none of those cases have required hospitalization.