Aurora officials find ProHealth plans ironic

Oconomowoc Focus, May 18, 2006

By Jonna Clark
Staff Writer

City of Oconomowoc Susan Ela said the irony of ProHealth Cares recent announcement and the reasons for it are not lost on her organization.

Ela might be in the position to know a little something about what it means to try to build a hospital in the Greater Oconomowoc area. Shes the president of Aurora Health Cares Kettle Moraine Region.

They are using the same arguments as we are to invest in western Waukesha County, she said.

ProHealth unveiled two expansions last week, for Oconomowoc Memorial Hospital (OMH) and the ProHealth Care Medical Center.

At a press conference last week, OMH President and CEO John Robertstad said the new initiatives come as part of caring for the community into the future and are not about competition.

Aurora has been trying to build a hospital in the Oconomowoc area since 2001 and has encountered only resistance from local and county government, with the exception of the Town of Summit.

The Summit Town Board welcomed the healthcare provider with open arms, and amended its master plan to allow a hospital to be built on town land in Pabst Farms in 2004.

Those plans were thwarted last year when the Waukesha County Board voted down the changes to the master plan.

Ela said competition is most surely prompting ProHealths investments.

Competition means better services for everyone, she added.

Ela said the more than 40,000 patients Aurora serves in the western part of the county deserve a choice in inpatient care and services.

Several calls for comment made to ProHealth on Wednesday were not returned by this newspapers deadline.

ProHealth projects include the Oconomowoc Physician Center (OPC), an 85,000 square-foot addition and renovation to the current site of the medical clinic at Highway 67 and I-94, and $37 million worth of renovations for OMH scheduled to begin in spring 2007.

The OPC is slated to cost $19 million with construction to start in fall 2006, and is a collaborative effort between independent physicians and ProHealth.

ProHealth will contribute $2 million to the project.

As for OMH, two-thirds of the project will be in the form of renovation and one-third in new space.

Robertstad said the OMH project would result in 11 new hospital beds. Aurora would like to build an 88-bed hospital facility in Pabst Farms.

Aurora also has a new building project in the works locally.

In February, Aurora announced plans to establish an interim center for womens health services at the Summit Center Market Place on Highway 67, with opening scheduled in fall 2006.