Aurora to open women's clinic

New Oconomowoc site described as a stopgap; push for full hospital is still on

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Feb. 8, 2006

Oconomowoc With its plans on hold for a new hospital and medical complex in nearby Summit, Aurora Health Care will open a large, new women's clinic in the city south of the existing Aurora Wilkinson Medical Clinic, it was announced Tuesday.

Five doctors specializing in obstetrics and gynecology, plus a variety of diagnostic equipment, will move out of the crowded Wilkinson clinic, at 915 Summit Ave., and into the new clinic to be built in the Summit Center Marketplace on Summit Ave. (Highway 67) just across the highway from the Olympia Resort and Conference Center.

The 14,000-square-foot clinic, about a half-mile south of the existing clinic, will be in a free-standing building to be built by the shopping center developer and will be leased by Aurora. It is projected to open in late summer or early fall.

Aurora officials emphasized that they view their occupancy of the new building to be temporary, and as soon as they receive the needed approvals to build their $85 million, 88-bed hospital and attached clinic in Summit, the women's clinic and the staff remaining at the Wilkinson clinic will move there.

"Aurora and our physicians remain 100 percent committed, and expect a new hospital to open at some point," said Patrick Sims, a Wilkinson doctor and one of the OB/GYNs who will move to the new clinic.

Of the new clinic, Aurora spokesman Jeff Squire said: "It's all interim until we get the hospital."

Making a brief appearance Tuesday night before the Summit Town Board, Sue Ela, an Aurora senior vice president now with responsibility for the company's Kettle Moraine region, pledged to continue working with the town to bring the new hospital to western Waukesha County. She said she wanted to reaffirm Aurora's commitment to the Summit project "if there was any doubt," and promised to meet board members at the groundbreaking.

Plans for building a hospital and medical complex at the southeast corner of I-94 and Highway 67 stalled when the County Board last April voted 21-11 to reject the Summit Town Board's endorsement of land use and zoning changes needed for the project.

Summit and Aurora sued the County Board over its refusal to approve the town-backed land use plan changes. Aurora had previously sued Oconomowoc after its Common Council in 2001 rezoned Aurora's first proposed site for a new hospital, north of I-94 at Highway 67, so that a hospital could not be built there. Both those lawsuits are pending in Waukesha County Circuit Court.

Winning those lawsuits is Aurora's primary strategy for moving ahead with its building plans in Summit, Aurora officials have said. Until then, Sims said, the space crunch at the Wilkinson clinic prompted the move to establish a separate women's clinic.

"We really need more space," he said.

In addition, the new clinic will be equipped to do bone density tests, which are not done at Wilkinson because of space limitations, he said.

The clinic will be set up to do mammography, stereotactic biopsy and ultrasound and will be able to accommodate more patients, Sims said.

When the obstetrician-gynecologists move out of the Wilkinson clinic, parts of it will be remodeled to provide more space for other services, Squire said.

Officials of ProHealth Care, which owns Waukesha Memorial Hospital and Oconomowoc Memorial Hospital, at 791 Summit Ave., just north of the Wilkinson clinic, vigorously oppose Aurora's plan to build a new hospital in Summit, just a few miles from the Oconomowoc facility. They argue that it is not needed and that empty patient beds would drive up the cost of health care for everyone in western Waukesha County.

But Oconomowoc Memorial spokeswoman Sandra Peterson said Tuesday that ProHealth officials never have opposed and do not now oppose the construction of an expanded Wilkinson clinic. She said they do not oppose the creation of Aurora's new women's clinic.

"There was never an objection to a new medical clinic," she said. "The objection was to duplication of an entire hospital and patient beds that will drive up costs."

In defending their plans to build a hospital in Summit, Aurora officials argue that the growing population of western Waukesha and eastern Jefferson counties warrants another hospital in the area.