When officials from Insight initially signed a letter of intent last January to purchase the shuttered 49-bed hospital at 1600 Morgan St., the healthcare provider’s corporate chief strategy officer Atif Bawahab said the Flint, Michigan-based company hoped to reopen by this spring.
A year later, there is no update from the hospital about when it plans to open in Keokuk. Bawahab could not be reached for comment.
Keokuk Mayor Kathie Mahoney said Burlington-based construction company Carl A. Nelson & Co. has been hired to renovate and prepare the hospital for reopening. She said both Insight and the city are still waiting for the Iowa legislature to finalize regulations that would allow Insight’s new Keokuk hospital and others located in more rural areas to provide 24-hour urgent care centers.
“We’re still kind of just plugging along waiting for the legislation to get all through for them to decide what all the rules and regulations are going to be for the rural emergency hospital,” Mahoney said. “I do know they’ve already been through the purchasing process, and they know how much it’s going to cost.”
Blessing Health purchased the Keokuk hospital in March 2021 and closed it 18 months later in October 2022. Officials cited consistently low demand for inpatient and emergency services as their reason for closing.
Blessing Health also recently announced it’s closing its healthcare clinic in Keokuk, as well as two others located in eastern Missouri.
In a statement released by Blessing Health External & Internal Communication Coordinator Steve Felde, the company “will consolidate” its operations in these three communities and will transfer its care to other Blessing Health clinics.
The Keokuk Clinic at 1414 Main St. will close at the end of the day on March 29.
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