FAULKTON, S.D. (AP) -- This town of about 800 residents just got its own hospital.
The Faulkton Area Medical Center is the first general hospital that has opened in South Dakota in 22 years, said Jay Jahnig, the hospital's administrator.
Specialty hospitals such as heart institutes and surgical centers have opened since then, but the last general hospital built was in Chamberlain.
Faulkton Area Medical Center and its emergency room were scheduled to begin operations on Thursday, and the clinic is slated to open on Monday. Options are still being discussed and sought for the old hospital building, which Faulk County owns, Jahnig said.
The $6-million-dollar Faulkton center is one of 33 critical-access hospitals built or being built this year in the U.S., Jahnig said. Critical-access hospitals, which receive a higher Medicare reimbursement rate, must be at least 35 miles from another hospital.
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The Faulkton hospital is the first in South Dakota financed by rural development funds from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Verne Hansen, president of the Faulkton hospital board, remembered asking a state Rural Development official years ago if it had ever funded a hospital.
"Well, no," was the response, Hansen said. "But he said maybe we should look into it."
Rural Development provided a $2.25 million direct loan and a $2.25 million guaranteed loan through Dacotah Bank in Faulkton for the hospital. The state awarded a $700,000 Community Development Block Grant, and Rural Development provided another $700,000 direct loan for the new clinic.
The center employs 54 people.
Jahnig said it's possible that people from a larger geographic area will seek the center's services because it is new and state-of-the-art.
For instance, in the secure room that stores prescription drugs, drawers holding the medications are programmed to open only to the point where the drug sought is located. This lessens the chance of error, Jahnig said.
The Faulkton facility also has a CT scan -- the only one between Aberdeen and Pierre -- and each bed in the 10-room, 12-bed hospital has a built-in scale so patients can be weighed in bed, he said.
