Ride For Life: Facility for vent-dependent patients may expand

Interim HealthCare expanded its home for ventilator-dependent patients in December, and demand may prompt the Duluth-based health care provider to expand again as soon as March.

Interim closed its four-bed Hermantown ventilator facility after constructing a 4,500-square-foot home at 4730 Matterhorn Circle in Duluth, which opened Dec. 15.

The new home employs 75 full- and part-time workers and has room for eight patients.

Interim may expand again shortly, adding 4,000 square feet and eight additional rooms, if its home reaches capacity in March, said Gary Halgren, president for Interim HealthCare of Lake Superior Inc.

As of Friday, five of eight beds were occupied, said Sandra Wade, a licensed practical nurse.

Interim opted to expand after repeatedly turning away patients from its previous facility, which was full, Halgren said. "We had no place for them."

Halgren said interviews with Twin Ports lung specialists and respiratory therapists reinforced their decision to expand. Interim opened its ventilator-dependent facility in October 1999. Halgren said it's the only facility of its kind in Northeastern Minnesota.

It's uncertain how many Minnesota nursing homes, home care agencies or long-term care facilities provide ventilator assistance to patients unable to breathe on their own.

Minnesota's Health Department does not specifically certify ventilator assistance, said Mary Absolon, manager of the health department's licensing and certification program.

Dr. Joseph Martinelli, a lung specialist at St. Luke's Hospital, argues there is a need to expand options in the Twin Ports for such critically ill residents.

Brain or spinal cord injury, muscle damage or neurological disorders, such as Gullian-Barre Syndrome or ALS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, impair the body's ability to breathe without aid, Martinelli said.

Between six and 20 patients each year need ventilators after being discharged from the East Hillside hospital, and not all have found local care, he said.

Traveling for medical care isolates patients and strains families and friends who must travel to Rochester or the Twin Cities to see loved ones, he said.