Wiebke appointed to hospital board

Julie Wiebke was appointed to the East Phillips County Hospital District Board of Directors at its March 23 regular meeting. She will be sworn in at the next meeting.

A position on the board became open when board member Mike “Woody” Woodhead resigned after deciding to move from the community earlier this year. Wiebke will fill the remainder of  Woodhead’s four-year term, which he began in May 2018.

Having been born and raised in Holyoke, Wiebke is the third generation of her family to live here, with the fourth and fifth generations also a part of the community.

She is very invested in Holyoke, and recently she began looking at ways she could give back and benefit the community. Her strong administrative skills and past experience make a governance board a good fit for her.

Wiebke is the owner/proprietor of Lighthouse Real Estate, co-owner of Wiebke Harvesting and part owner of her family’s business, Scholl Oil and Transportation, where she completes administrative duties.

Wiebke is currently on the board of the Heginbotham Library, and she serves at First Baptist Church in various ministries.

She is married to Ivan Wiebke, and of their four children and eight grandchildren, four of them live in Holyoke.

Vaccine orders rejected

The good news was that MMH had seen only a couple of positive COVID-19 tests in the last one and a half months, reported Jenn Cano, quality improvement coordinator, employee health and infection control director, and interim director of nursing.

The bad news, however, was that the hospital’s last two COVID-19 vaccine orders had been rejected by the state.

With about 150 doses on hand, Cano said the focus was on completing patients’ second doses of the vaccine while holding off on starting anyone on their first doses.

She noted her thankfulness to the local health department for giving MMH 100 doses of the vaccine.

Even health care professionals are a bit stumped as to why some places have received an abundance of vaccines while others have received very little.

Family Practice of Holyoke, the clinic attached to MMH, has been accepted as a vaccine provider, but the details were still being worked out.

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