Today, Southwest Healthcare Services along with USDA Rural Development will break ground on a new hospital and clinic in Bowman.
“With the population and industry growth in Bowman County, Southwest Healthcare is experiencing great demand for their medical services,” said Jasper Schneider, USDA Rural Development state director. “USDA is proud to help finance the new state-of-the-art hospital to provide the highest quality of health care.”
Built in the 1950s, the current hospital and clinic are not structurally adequate to respond to the increasing volume of patients. More than doubling the size of the current facilities, the new 60,000-square-foot structure will be attached to the existing nursing home. By combining all health care services at one central location instead of the two current campuses, Southwest Healthcare will be able to provide more efficient and convenient care.
Expected to be finished by the end of 2016, the hospital will be a two-story building allowing for expansion to go upward with future growth. The project will increase the number of emergency rooms, remodel the nursing home and construct a new memory care unit.
Through the Community Facilities program, USDA Rural Development will finance 55 percent of the project with a $15 million low-interest loan. Additional financing will come from the North Dakota Medical Infrastructure Loan program and from Southwest Healthcare.
Facilitated by USDA Rural Development, the North Dakota 2.0 initiative held one of their 14 regional meetings in Bowman. During discussions, community members and the initiative at large identified access to rural health care as a top priority. Therefore, USDA Rural Development has focused on building-out health care infrastructure.
Since 2009, USDA has invested over $200 million in North Dakota health care projects including clinics and hospitals, long-term care facilities, emergency vehicles and telemedicine equipment. To learn more about the community facilities program, please visit http://www.rurdev.usda.gov/nd.