Veterans Memorial Hospital celebrates National Hospital Week May 9-15 and 70 years serving area communities


Then and now; VMH celebrates its history ... May 9-15 is National Hospital Week. Veterans Memorial Hospital in Waukon opened its doors October 1, 1950. An original building and campus photo is above. For 70 years, the hospital has made many additions to the building and the services it offers with the latest addition being the opening of the Veterans Memorial Hospital Medical Clinic last week. An updated photo of the hospital campus is below. Submitted photos.

Veterans Memorial Hospital is in its 70th year of serving the community.  While the building itself has made many changes, the hospital staff still strives to provide exceptional, compassionate care.

How it All Began… a hospital timeline.
May 22, 1938:  The need for a hospital began with an emergency including seven persons who were seriously injured in a head-on crash near Waukon. The medical office of Drs. Rominger and Jeffries, located above what was Klenske Drug Store and is now Gemini Salon, was immediately furnished with beds so the seven victims could be “hospitalized.”  The medical office continued to serve as the hospital.

1947: The City of Waukon purchased the land for the erection of the first hospital.

October 1, 1950: The hospital itself was completed and opened to the public October 1, 1950. The hospital was named Veterans Memorial Hospital in honor of the Veterans who had served recently in both World Wars. The hospital had an OB department, an operating room, and ER room and eight inpatient rooms with 12 beds on the main level and 14 on the upper level. It was managed by the Good Samaritan Society.

1962: Veterans Memorial Hospital had its first expansion, adding 15 more patient rooms and another shower room on each floor.

January 1, 1975: The City of Waukon took over the ownership of Veterans Memorial Hospital from the Good Samaritan Society.

1976: An addition to expand emergency and radiology services was added.

July 1, 1995: Hospital began managing Allamakee County Public Health for the county, renaming it Veterans Memorial Hospital Community and Home Care.

1998: Franciscan Skemp Healthcare Waukon Clinic opened, who then became the Mayo Waukon Clinic but later closed its doors in December 2019. Veterans Memorial Hospital gained ownership of that building in 2019.

May of 1998: Veterans Memorial Hospital broke ground for a three-year building and renovation project allowing for each patient room to have control of its own heating and cooling needs, adding full shower facilities within each patient room making most rooms private. A new main entrance separate from the ER entrance was added, an ambulance port, new CT scanner and updated radiology department, a new laboratory, new surgery suite, new rehabilitation, therapy and fitness services, and a Chapel was added and dedicated to Ingrid Dehli Hogan, a long-time hospital employee who expressed how much a Chapel was needed. The Maternity Services Department was also completely redesigned to meet the growing needs of OB.

2005: The Gundersen Lutheran Waukon Clinic, now the Gundersen Health Waukon Clinic, was built and attached to the south end of the hospital.

2008-2018: Many improvements took place during these years such as a refigured Same Day Surgery area, ICN Conference Room, Hospitality Waiting Room, two massage therapy rooms, and remodeled nurses station, patient rooms and maternity suites. Many technological additions also have taken place such as digital radiology, electronic medical records, plus a permanent MRI was added for daily availability. Many services were also added such as the water birthing tub, infusion therapy, dry needling, incontinence therapy, lymphedema therapy, ASTYM, a full-time speech pathology, walk-in wellness testing, bone densitometry, full-time ultra sound, a third ambulance, upgrade to a paramedic provisional ambulance service, Community Cardiac Arrest Specialty response Team,  continuous glucose monitoring, Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) injections and Bone Marrow Concentrate (BMC) injections, just to name some of the additions and improvements in the last few years.

2021:  The newest expansion in the history of Veterans Memorial Hospital’s 70 years is the addition of the new Medical Clinic which opened last week May 3. The Veterans Memorial Hospital Medical Clinic offers needed primary family health care to the entire northeast Iowa area. Now, with both the Gundersen Waukon Clinic and VMH Waukon Clinic, northeast Iowa has the access to primary health care they need and deserve. This new clinic meets the privacy and technology needs required by rural health care clinics today.

Veterans Memorial Hospital employs well over 200 staff members who continue to offer personalized, compassionate care. As stated by Mary Riley, RN, long time employee and known as the founding “mother” of the hospital, “You still get the best care here at Veterans Memorial Hospital.  The building is incidental - it’s the people who are the important factor.”