AgCountry Farm Credit Services awarded the Mountrail Bethel Home $25,000 as a recipient of the Rural Community Grant Fund. The grant funds will go towards purchasing patient beds for the nursing home.
Stephanie Everett, Mountrail County Health Foundation Director and MCHC Administrator, accepted the check that will be used towards that purchase.
“AgCountry Farm Credit Services is proud to provide grant funding for new patient beds for the nursing home facility,” said Scott Ruzicka, Relationship Officer with AgCountry Farm Credit Services. With the completion of the new state-of-the-art nursing home, and hospital and assisted living expansion, the facility is integrating Panacea 8000 Bariatric Beds and accompanying equipment in the nursing home, providing caregivers with ergonomically efficient tools that will improve daily care. “These features address unique healthcare challenges, ensuring higher-quality care and greater comfort for every patient,” adds Ruzicka.
The Mountrail Bethel Home serves residents from across the region, including Stanley, New Town, Ross and Minot. Ag Country Farm Credit Services believes it is important to give back to the community.
AgCountry Farm Credit Services, Farm Credit Services of Mandan, and AgriBank, established the Rural Community Grant Fund to assist in the implementation and development of projects and programs in communities and rural areas in western North Dakota which have been impacted by mineral exploration.
The RCGF is currently accepting applications for future funding requests. Interested parties can apply at www.AgCountry.com.
A week after the dedication of the new Mountrail Bethel Home nursing home section, there was another gathering on Wednesday, March 11, at the Mountrail Bethel Home. This time, those gathering were there to say goodbye. This was a time for families to return, remember, and give thanks. It was one last visit to the original nursing home before it is taken down, including a prayer of blessing and an opportunity to visit loved ones’ rooms.
The hallways already show the beginning of the work to take down the north and south wings of the old nursing home. It was quiet in the gathering space, a place that was used by residents for many of their activities throughout the day.
Pastor Erin Tormanen offered his thanks for these spaces that held a special place in the hearts of those attending. This day was a time to remember those who had made the rooms their home and where they lost many of them. He says this is true in nursing homes, where those living there were cared for in the last chapters of their lives.
He asked that the memories continue to be a blessing. As they were taking one last walk through the spaces, he encouraged those attending to remember the faces and let the memories come back as a precious gift from God. He encouraged them to let the memories flood in and fill them with the love and life they shared.
Angels were left on the ledges in the old nursing home with those attending encouraged to take those home with them. They were given a time to wander and see these spaces in whatever manner they chose before leaving.
Crews are beginning the work in the north and south wings as they prepare for the next phases of construction that will lead to the hospital renovations. It will start with the removal of the old nursing home wings to create a new entrance and parking area.
There will be a gift shop and a new waiting room. Construction down the current south wing of the nursing home will include adding an out-patient infusion suite, pharmacy suite and an MRI suite.
Purchasing will be moving from the basement to the upper level. The downstairs area will be renovated to accommodate a new specialty clinic that will allow the facility to bring in more specialists. It will also include a minor procedure room.
The final phase of construction will be adding seven new apartments to Rosen Place. The assisted living facility always has an extensive waiting list, showing the need for the new apartments. These will all be single apartments based on the footprint space available.
The entire project cost is estimated at $47 million, with $29 million of that for the new nursing home. The Mountrail County Commissioners committed $25 million over two years for the nursing home portion of the project. Other donors and fundraising efforts have left the entire project with $5 million left to raise. The Foundation continues to accept donations from the public including the ability to donate on their website: www.mountrailcountyhealthfoundation.org/how-you-canhelp.
Wednesday, March 4, was a big day at the Mountrail Bethel Home in Stanley as the new nursing home was opened to the public for the first time with a dedication and open house in the afternoon.
The day began earlier for the residents of Mountrail Bethel Home as they got their first look at what will be their new home in the morning. Residents were able to participate in a ribbon-cutting ceremony that included a prayer of dedication with activities director Chuck Repnow.
Following the ribbon cutting, they were able to tour the new facility and find their new rooms. Faces lit up as they were given their tours of all of the new spaces before going back to the older wings of the nursing home for now. Residents were expected to begin moving into their new rooms on Monday, March 9.
The new rooms are larger and more modern. There is a new family room for private events and a new outdoor patio with fire pits and grill. The facility also added a new beauty and nail salon for residents.
The dedication ceremony was one of thanks, opening with Administrator Steph Everett welcoming everyone to this new nursing home which has been decades in the making. She thanked board members who have made this positive decision over the years and construction company McGough for their beautiful work. She said the generosity of donors, including the Mountrail County Commissioners, have made this possible. She also thanked the staff for their “all hands on deck” work to get ready for this day. She looks forward to the amazing resident and patient care that will come from the entire project.
Dr. Mark Longmuir said this is a new chapter in the lives of the residents. It is a celebration of the commitment of all in the community. He thanked family members for trusting the facility to care for their loved ones.
While this is a new journey for all, the new facility is the representation of decades of planning and a shared belief that everyone deserves the very best.
He thanked all those who have put in so much time and effort getting to this point, including McGough and their contractors, CEO Steph Everett for her work put into the planning and details, Jim Clark for the decades of work preparing for this project, and the maintenance staff and housekeeping staff for the work preparing for this day.
To the residents, he said this opens a new chapter of joy, peace and love, ending with “welcome home”.
Board member Heath Hetzel said that projects like this take change. The community will continue to see that change when the north and south wings of the old nursing home begin coming down.
He also pointed to the chapel at Bethel Home, which is amazing. When the north wing comes down, that chapel and its beauty will become a focal point.
He also expressed how excited they are to have a new home for the residents and gave all glory to God for the process.
Current MBH board chairman Ryan Gjellstad gave his thanks to all of the staff and commended them for the work to take care of everything, saying he has all the confidence in the world in the future of the facility.
Former board president Bob Grant said that over twenty years ago, while he was on the board, they discussed what they could do to help the residents but they faced the space struggles. They looked at whether they should remodel, fix or build again, all the while wondering what it would take.
Looking at the way the facility is now a campus with the nursing home, hospital, clinic and assisted living, he commends those who followed after them for following through. He, too, looks forward to seeing the chapel as a front focal point for the facility. He ended by saying that he is proud of all they have done, building for the future and adapting to the changes.
Former board president George Olson remembered the time in the 1950s when the homes in rural communities were filled with older, retired people. They were faced with the challenge of what to do to help them. It was these people who formed the committee and created MBH and he is thankful for that. He said this new facility is a place where people can come and be blessed again. He expressed his gratitude to the community, the generations before us, and those to come.
Pastor Erin Tormanen reflected on the official groundbreaking on July 17, 2024, with the goal of MBH to create an environment that works to satisfy the physical, emotional and spiritual needs for the residents and their families.
While the physical facility is now here, it is more than a building. It takes love, personal and intimate care for those residents. The command to love and take care of our neighbors is woven through God’s creation and scripture. He offered praise to God for all of the efforts to bring forth this facility, making it a glorious reality to serve those precious and beautiful souls that will come in and fill the rooms. He ended with a prayer of dedication for this new facility.
Following the official ceremonies, those attending were treated to an amazing charcuterie spread that filled the nurses’ station. Those attending were also allowed to tour the facility, checking out all of the amazing new spaces and rooms.
Groundbreaking on the new nursing home was held on July 17, 2024. This first phase of construction is the new 36 bed nursing home, including ten basic care rooms. This is the same number of beds as the former nursing home.
With that work now complete, construction will move to the hospital renovations. Those will start with the removal of the old nursing home wings to create a new entrance and parking area. The public is invited to join the facility again as they host a farewell to the original Mountrail Bethel Home on Wednesday, March 11 at 12:00 noon. This will be a time for families to return, remember and give thanks. It will be one last visit to the original nursing home before it is taken down, including a prayer of blessing and opportunity to visit loved ones’ rooms.
There will be a gift shop and a new waiting room. Construction down the current south wing of the nursing home will include adding an out-patient infusion suite, pharmacy suite and an MRI suite.
Purchasing will be moving from the basement to the upper level. The downstairs area will be renovated to accommodate a new specialty clinic that will allow the facility to bring in more specialists. It will also include a minor procedure room.
The final phase of construction will be adding seven new apartments to Rosen Place. The assisted living facility currently always has an extensive waiting list, showing the need for the new apartments. These will all be single apartments based on the footprint space available.
The entire project cost is estimated at $47 million, with $29 million of that for the new nursing home. The Mountrail County Commissioners committed $25 million over two years for the nursing home portion of the project. Other donors and fundraising efforts have left the entire project with $5 million left to raise. The Foundation continues to accept donations from the public including the ability to donate on their website:www.mountrailcountyhealthfoundation.org/how-you-canhelp.
Jill Schramm/MDN Construction workers with McGough raise wall supports inside what will be a new nursing home at Mountrail County Health Center on Feb. 24.
STANLEY – Mountrail County Health Center in Stanley has launched a three-year, $53 million construction project designed to enhance care for its community and particularly for its long-term care residents.
Currently, the contractor, McGough, has construction underway on a new 46-bed skilled and basic care facility to replace the existing Mountrail Bethel Home, with completion expected in March 2026.
“We’ve talked about this project forever, so I’m excited to have it come to fruition,” said Stephanie Everett, administrator and foundation director for MCHC. “The residents deserve a nice home.”
The 60 year old nursing home building is showing its age, she said. Pipes are crumbling. Bathrooms are too small to accommodate lifts and barely fit wheelchairs.
The new nursing home will have 36 skilled care beds and 10 basic care beds, as does the existing facility. Everett said maintaining the number of beds is important with the continued aging of the Baby Boom generation.
A couple of construction workers with McGough secure exterior covering on the side of a section of a new long-term care facility in Stanley Feb. 24.
Visitors entering the new nursing home will be greeted by the nursing station, located near a large, open area with tall ceilings and large windows.
“We want to have events, but sometimes we have to take it off campus because we just don’t have the space. So, we’ll be able to now have this great space to have our health fairs and all kinds of different events that we want to do,” Everett said.
The new nursing home will offer mostly private rooms, with more spacious rooms and full-sized beds. There will be two double rooms available for skilled or basic care per state requirements.
Green spaces and patios will be located around the facility, with a patio area with a firepit just outside the facility’s family room. A new beauty and nail salon will replace the current salon space.
North Dakota law allows counties to donate to local medical centers for new construction. The Mountrail County Health Foundation approached the Mountrail County Commission with a $25 million request and received $15 million last year and $10 million this year.
A construction crew with McGough works Feb. 24 inside a new long-term care facility that is coming to fruition in Stanley.
“I thank them and credit them for that donation, for allowing this project to happen,” Everett said. “I cannot thank the county enough for their support and having the vision of wanting to support their local nursing home and see it survive.”
The $25 million will pay the bulk of the nursing home construction cost. As of February, the foundation had $14 million yet to raise through donations and grants to fully fund the $53 million project.
Eight local Lutheran churches that have ownership in Mountrail Bethel Home also are looking at ways to support the project. Community financial support is critical to be able to make the improvements, Everett said.
“You don’t make money running a nonprofit, rural nursing home or rural hospital,” she said. “You literally are doing it for your community. You want to bring in the best providers. We’re blessed to have local providers.”
A future phase of the proposed construction includes a new hospital gift shop, extended ambulance bay and extended hospital waiting room.
Equipment and crews with McGough break up ground where work is ongoing on Mountrail County Health Center’s new long-term care facility Feb. 24.
This spring, construction will start on the ambulance garage. That work is set for an October completion. The waiting room in the middle of the hospital will move closer to the ambulance side of the building.
The kitchen will double in size during renovation scheduled to commence in March 2026 and finish in 2027. Additionally, the 11-bed, critical access hospital, built in 2001, will get a new entrance.
Once the new nursing home opens, both the north and south wings of the existing facility will be demolished, allowing expansion of the hospital and creation of a parking lot. A single parking lot ending in a circular driveway in front of the facility will connect the access points to the nursing home, hospital and clinic.
The hospital expansion will include space for MRI equipment and an infusion suite, both of which will be new offerings that will allow for more outpatient services, Everett said. Pharmacy will be getting a new suite, and a suite area will be created for outside specialists who come to provide care.
“We have six specialists that come in now, but we need to designate a space for it because it’s just getting too tight in the clinic,” Everett said.
The expansion construction is scheduled for July 2026-September 2027.
Rosen Place on 8th Assisted Living and a chapel, both built in 2019, will stay, and a new wing will be added to Rosen Place during 2027. As of February, Rosen Place had a waiting list of 31 individuals. The plan is to add seven more units to the current 14.
If all goes as planned, MCHC will have its new look fully completed by December 2027.
The latest projects come after an earlier series of projects that started about 15 years ago with the addition of a CT scanner, expansion of the emergency room and enclosure for the ambulance bay. That was followed by a clinic expansion and construction of Rosen Place, an executive conference room and chapel.
The new nursing home phase of construction at the Mountrail County Health Center received a generous donation of $500,000 from the American Lutheran Church in Stanley last week.
Roger Gjellstad, vice-president of the church council, said that the church has been blessed with oil revenue and they felt this was a great local, Christian project, that they wanted to support. The congregation voted to make the donation last year.
Gjellstad said that they are very excited to have this facility in the community. The community is also very blessed to have MCHC looking to the future of taking care of residents for years to come.
Work on the new nursing home phase of construction remains right on schedule with crews planning to take Christmas week off. Anderson Steel has been hard at work getting the steel set. Outer walls should start going up on December 16 with roofing beginning in the first full week of January. After that, it will be full speed ahead with work on the interior of the building.
The first phase of the construction is the new 36 bed nursing home, including ten basic care rooms, the same number of beds as the current nursing home. This Nursing Home phase is expected to take roughly two years and once completed will come up to where the current north wing is located.
On the hospital side, renovations will start with a new entrance near the existing sunroom at Mountrail Bethel Home (MBH). There will be a gift shop and a new waiting room. Construction down the current south wing of the nursing home will include adding an out-patient infusion suite, pharmacy suite and an MRI suite.
Purchasing will be moving from the basement to the upper level. The downstairs area will be renovated to accommodate a new specialty clinic that will allow the facility to bring in more specialists. It will also include a minor procedure room.
The ambulance bay by the emergency room will be extended to accommodate the larger sizes of the newer ambulances.
They will also be adding seven new apartments to Rosen Place. The assisted living facility currently has a waiting list of 31, showing the need for the new apartments. These will all be single apartments based on the footprint space available. These apartments will be located along the rest of the current south wing of the nursing home. The Rosen Place addition is the final part of construction.
Fundraising for the entire project continues. To date, the Mountrail County Health Foundation has $36 million of the estimated $47 million cost of the project.
“To say the Foundation is grateful for this amazing donation from the American Lutheran Church is an understatement. We celebrated National Rural Health Day two weeks ago. With 61 million people calling a rural community their home, rural medical facilities are the lifeline of America’s underserved, emphasizing the term “The POWER of Rural”. For if the Mountrail County Health Center was not in existence, that would mean 36 Nursing Home residents, with 18 new admissions over the past year, 15 Rosen Place residents and 4 Basic Care residents would not have a home. That would mean 345 Outpatients, 23 Swingbeds patients, 9,791 Clinic patients, 6,210 lab visits, 3,641 Radiology visits, 4,445 Physical Therapy patients and 3,005 ER Visits would have to find other facilities outside of Mountrail County to go to. That also would mean 141 employees would have to find another facility to work at.
The Mountrail County Medical Center and the Mountrail Bethel Home Boards approved, over the last year, to move forward with a $47 million dollar building project, including a new nursing Home. The County has generously pledged towards the new nursing home. To ensure the future services of the nursing home to take care of the elderly in rural communities, the Mountrail County Health Foundation has set an aggressive goal of fundraising the remaining $11 million dollars. The community has always rallied around the Health Center on its previous projects. And now it’s time to focus on the Nursing Home and allow our residents a higher quality of life.”
To donate to the Partnering For the Future Campaign, please contact Steph Everett at 701-628-8603. For donation options, you can also visit the Health Foundation’s website at www.mountrailcountyhealthfoundation.org.
Bravera Bank: A Longtime Supporter of MCHC and the Surrounding Community
Stanley branch Market President Heath Hetzel says that Bravera focuses on giving back and supporting their communities. The hospital and nursing home are a huge part of not just Stanley, but all surrounding communities.
When Bravera sees a need across their footprint, they want to support and be a part of meeting that need. Youth and healthcare make up a large part of where they want to allocate their giving, as hospitals and schools are two of the largest employers within communities.
Our own Steph Everett, Administrator of Mountrail Bethel Home and CEO of MCMC shared:
“Bravera Bank has been a longtime supporter of the building projects at the Mountrail County Health Center over the years. We are thankful for their ongoing leadership and support in improving our community, and are so grateful for their generosity and what a blessing they are to the new Nursing Home project.”
MCHC Building Project Timeline
The first phase of construction for the MCHC project is our new 36-bed nursing home (including ten basic care rooms), the same number of beds as the current nursing home. This Nursing Home phase is expected to take roughly two years and, once completed, will come up to where the current north wing is located.
On the hospital side, renovations will start with a new entrance near the existing sunroom at Mountrail Bethel Home (MBH). There will be a gift shop and a new waiting room. Construction down the current south wing of the nursing home will include adding an out-patient infusion suite, a pharmacy suite, and an MRI suite.
In addition, purchasing will be moving from the basement to the upper level. The downstairs area will be renovated to accommodate a new specialty clinic that will allow us to bring in more specialists and include a minor procedure room. The ambulance bay by the emergency room will be extended to accommodate the larger sizes of newer ambulances.
As the final part of construction, we will also be adding seven new single apartments to Rosen Place. The assisted living facility currently has a waiting list of 31, showing the need for the new apartments. These apartments will be located along the rest of the current south wing of the nursing home.
Thank you, Bravera Bank, for your generous donation!
