Senator Chuck Grassley tours Veterans Memorial Hospital, holds discussion with hospital personnel

by Brianne Grimstad

U.S. Senator for Iowa Chuck Grassley made a stop in Waukon at Veterans Memorial Hospital (VMH) in Waukon for a tour of the facility and a question and answer session with VMH personnel Thursday, September 25 during his 45th annual tour of Iowa’s 99 counties. This was the senator’s first visit back to VMH since he made a stop there back in 2017.

Senator Grassley was given a tour of the hospital, led by VMH Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Michael Coyle. Coyle provided a brief history of the hospital and showed the senator around the main floor of the facility, pointing out the various services provided by VMH, as well as discussing some of the areas that were not viewed on the tour, including Community and Home Care-Public Health and Obstetrics.

After the tour, Senator Grassley joined VMH staff members in the hospital’s large conference room for a Q&A session. Grassley started off the session by talking about legislation he helped to pass to help protect the services of rural hospitals by way of the Rural Emergency Hospital (REH) program.

“This would not ever apply to Waukon because of how you are operating here,” the senator noted, further qualifying, “A lot of places, they aren’t this busy and in this large of a community.”

He explained that the program is a voluntary program. He noted the average occupancy of beds by a rural hospital is around five to six percent on a year-round basis, and that it can be very expensive to maintain that. To be eligible for the REH Program, a hospital would need to have patient 50 beds or less, have a rural classification, and would have to offer emergency services and observation, but not keep patients longer than 24 hours. That facility would also have to have an agreement in place with a Level 1 or Level 2 Trauma Center for transfers of patients, in addition to other requirements.

Grassley noted that nationwide there are 50 hospitals that have applied for this program, including a facility in Keokuk within the state of Iowa that had closed down but would like to re-open as a Rural Emergency Hospital. Grassley also noted that he visits four to five hospitals every year, and he noted that hospital staff has a “great commitment” to their jobs, and he felt the “Iowa work ethic” has something to do with that.

Prior to taking questions from the staff, the senator encouraged his constituents to email his office with questions and concerns. The staff questions covered a variety of topics starting off with the SAFE (Stopping Addiction and Falls for Elderly) Act, which was not passed last March, and inquiring as to whether Senator Grassley was in favor of that bill. It was explained that the goal of this proposed bill is to decrease falls in the elderly population and the possibility of opioid addiction from use of pain medication after a fall. This act would increase accessibility to falls screening and prevention, which would be done by a physical therapist as part of the Medicare Annual Wellness visit.

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