McFarland to relocate to new Hy-Vee

By ANDREW McGINN
a.mcginn@beeherald.com

A community “celebration breakfast” on Nov. 7 hosted by McFarland Clinic and Hy-Vee will finally confirm the worst-kept secret in recent Jefferson history — that a new clinic will be attached to the supermarket under construction.

“We would love for people to come hear this great news,” Shelley Goecke, public relations director for McFarland, said Tuesday.

The event at the Greene County Community Center will begin with a hot breakfast at 7:15 a.m.

At 7:40, Hy-Vee and McFarland representatives will roll out artist renderings and provide construction updates.

“Everything’s signed and sealed,” Goecke said.

Those interested in attending should RSVP at mcfarlandclinic.com/jefferson — but, as of Wednesday, the site wasn’t quite ready to accept reservations.

On Tuesday, Goecke was still somewhat coy about McFarland’s plan to continue practicing in Jefferson after its lease was terminated by the Greene County Medical Center.

“We’ve always said we want to notify our patients first,” she said.

Letters will be going out this week to patients, according to Goecke.

The Hy-Vee under construction on Washington Street — site of Jefferson’s old “pink school” — is slated to open in the spring.

In June, the medical center board voted to serve McFarland with an eviction notice effective June 19, 2015. Ames-based McFarland has operated a clinic at the local hospital since 1991.

Despite a letter dated June 27 to area patients in which McFarland doctors blasted the decision as “abrupt” — and that communication with hospital leadership has been “challenging, difficult and often times indirect” — the vote couldn’t have come as all that big of a shock.

A month earlier, the medical center board approved a partnership with UnityPoint Clinic, clearing the way for UnityPoint Health-Des Moines to open a new family medicine clinic in Jefferson.

The local medical center has had a partnership with UnityPoint going back to the ’90s that has only gotten stronger in recent years.