Mountrail County Health Center looks to future with 3-year project

23 May 2025 Mountrail Bethel Home, News, Partnering for the Future, Uncategorized , , , , , ,

New nursing home under construction

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.

ALC Donates To Health Foundation

7 Dec 2024 Mountrail Bethel Home, News, Partnering for the Future , , ,

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.

A Farewell To Centennial Court

19 Jun 2024 News, Uncategorized , , , ,

With work slated to begin on the new MCMC project this summer, a farewell to Centennial Court was held on Wednesday, May 29. The public was invited to the event that included a short program and a time to share memories of Centennial Court.

Pastor Erin Tormanen opened the program by quoting Psalm 71:9, which reads “Do not cast me away when I am old; do not forsake me when my strength is gone,” (New International Version). He said that people are often troubled by the past, present, and future, perplexed by the challenges, but that can be alleviated by placing faith in God’s faithfulness and covenants.

As you look across cultures, all too often those can feel cast off. In his five years in Stanley, he said, he has had the opportunity to share both at the chapel at Bethel Home and Centennial Court and is thankful and give praise for this place that does not cast off, but rather provides a place to come and have a rich life. He also pointed out, it was not the building, but rather the residents and staff that provided the legacy. As the work at Centennial Court comes to an end, God is not done but rather following his plan and what replaces Centennial Court will build a new legacy. Indeed, he said, it is time to yield to the changes, glorify what is to come and rejoice in what has been, as he offered a prayer of blessing.

Ardis Loock, who was the director at Centennial Court for 21 years, shared her memories of what a wonderful place this was to work. While she shared that she hates to see it go, she knows that what will come will be just as nice.

MBH Activities Director Chuck Repnow shared his thankfulness for the location and opportunities it has given for the residents over the years, saying that the community has shown its desire to take care of its loved ones here, providing a quality of life and more. He praised the foresight to provide the connection between assisted living, the nursing home, hospital and aquatic center.

MBH Social Worker Kelly Wilhelmi spoke about the use of the building during COVID, to provide a unit with the staff to take care of them allowing them to stay at home. She said they were able to have their own employees provide care during the worst possible times while also allowing families to be able to visit their loved ones, often times through the windows, but also in the comfort of their own community.

Melissa Peterson, who has worked at Centennial Court since its opening, says that the importance of the facility was the people she got to meet, who she says enriched her life even more than she gave them.

Others attending shared memories of the gathering space, which was used for birthdays, family gatherings and more. Those memories will always be there as the facility moves forward with the new construction.

It has been more than a year since the Mountrail County Health Foundation began the Partnering for the Future Campaign to add new services to the hospital, expand residences at Rosen Place and build a brand new, state-of-the-art nursing home facility. The first phase of the construction will be a new 36 bed nursing home, which will start with the demolition of Centennial Court in July. Once that phase is complete work can begin to remove the old nursing home and begin hospital renovations and finally the addition of new apartments to Rosen Place.

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