A new building for Lee County Emergency Medical Services is expected to open by mid-September.
Construction of the building is underway at Blondeau and 16th streets in Keokuk. It’s next to the current EMS site, which only staffs one crew of paramedics and has space for one ambulance.
The new building will house three ambulances and nine medical technicians.
Lee County EMS Director Mark Long said the need for emergency medical services became more urgent after Blessing Health closed the 49-bed hospital at 1600 Morgan St. in Keokuk in October 2022.
“There was already a need for another truck due to call volumes before the hospital closed,” Long said. “But the hospital closing really forced us into it.”
In January 2023, Flint, Michigan-based healthcare provider Insight signed a letter of intent to purchase the hospital.
Insight has not announced when the hospital could reopen.
Long said that since the hospital’s closure, county paramedics have had to transport Keokuk-area residents to emergency rooms about 20 miles out of town.
“The biggest thing on our end is that every time we pick a patient up in Keokuk, we have to take them all the way to either Carthage (in western Illinois) or Ft. Madison,” Long said.
“So that's a lot longer turnaround time to get that ambulance back in service.”
In March, 2023, Lee County voters approved a property tax levy to help expand emergency medical services. The levy went into effect in July, 2023, and shifted the county’s EMS funding from the general fund to its property tax collection.
The 75-cent increase applies to every $1,000 of property value for the next 10 years. The increase amounts to an additional $42 to the average homeowner’s tax bill.
The county also plans to build another new EMS building on land just west of Ft. Madison. The 1,500-square-foot building will be located on nine acres of land that was donated to the county.
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