Van Buren hospital turns 60 years old

KEOSAUQUA ? The Van Buren County Hospital is celebrating 60 years of serving Keosauqua and the surrounding area June 26.

Events will kick off at 4 p.m. with a groundbreaking for the new community center and daycare being constructed behind the hospital. A birthday celebration with music by Tarnished Brass, games and free pork sandwich dinners will follow on the front lawn.

Festivities will continue through 7 p.m. when Healthy Villages will show the Disney movie ?Tangled? outdoors.

During the event, the hospital?s five physicians and nine physician assistants and nurse practitioners will meet and greet visitors. Tours of the hospital, including the delivery rooms and physical therapy department, will be offered, and historical photos of the hospital, as well as plans for the new structure, will be on display.

Director of marketing Debbie Randolph said the hospital first opened in February 1951, but the celebration was pushed back to this summer to take advantage of the warmer weather. The hospital was expanded in 1962, and clinics in Douds, Cantril, Birmingham, Bonaparte and Farmington opened in 1993.

Randolph said the hospital strives to stay on the cutting edge of technology ? the addition of digital mammography is just one example. The hospital also is affiliated with University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics and is the university?s southeast Iowa heart center. A university doctor provides out-patient services every Monday from Keosauqua.

Approximately 200 people are employed by the hospital, including the addition of an obstetrician/gynecologist and full-time surgeon in the last few years.

Randolph explained the hospital has outgrown its current space, and the existing hospital daycare a few blocks away is aging, warranting construction of a new facility.

The building constructed behind the hospital will house the hospital?s job opportunities and Parents as Teachers programs, occupational health department and visiting optometrist?s office in addition to the daycare. Randolph said the goal is to complete the shell by winter and open the building next spring.

Once the new building opens, Randolph said remodeling of the existing hospital to make room for more technology is next on the docket.