Hawarden Man Promotes Rural Healthcare and Midwestern Family Life

Hawarden resident Brian Monsma, along with his wife Denise, have chosen to make this Midwest town home for themselves and their three young boys.

The Monsma family moved to Hawarden in February 2001 from Great Falls, Montana. After working in the healthcare industry in Montana for seven years, it was time to move closer to family, raise their own family and for Brian to take the next step in his career.

Hawarden is centrally located between Brian's home area of Denver, Colorado and his wife Denise's home area of St. Louis, Missouri.

After a little over fours years as Administrator at Hawarden Community Hospital, an employment opportunity in Sioux City presented itself, and despite the commute, Monsma accepted.

He is currently Executive Director of Mercy Medical Services (MMS), the physician practice subsidiary of Mercy Medical Center, an organization that was formed in the mid-1980's.

The daily commute is really not much of a bother when your job routinely includes travel among the rural communities of Northwest Iowa, Central Iowa and Eastern Nebraska.

"Part of my role is to connect with our physicians at all those sites, and usually we do that on a monthly basis. Actually, being from a rural community helps," Monsma explains of his communications with physicians, office managers and employees of rural health clinics and hospitals. "I come from a community of a similar size, I understand those dynamics. That helps."

Monsma uses his commute as a way to process the days events and wind down. "Having that road time, is actually something that I looked forward to as I took the job here in Sioux City."

Monsma is no stranger to job related travel. His work in Montana also included travel to healthcare facilities in rural communities.

Being in touch with the healthcare needs of rural Iowa and Nebraska isn't merely a job requirement for Monsma, it also effects the quality of life that his rural family enjoys.

"Viable hospitals and clinics in small communities is key to those communities thriving," Monsma noted about the survival of small towns."Now we have critical access hospitals, which is a national Medicare program, and it's been great for rural access (to healthcare)."
Monsma watched the slow failure of rural clinics and hospitals in Montana before the government stepped in with the mandate of critical access hospitals.

"It's been fun to see a lot of the growth with the critical access and the rural access. We have 28 clinics, and almost all of them are rural health clinics, which are a similar model to critical access, that gives you higher Medicare funding to maintain an access," Monsma explained. " It's great, because you can have that care, just around the corner."

Helping create access to healthcare in rural America drives Monsma, a rural resident himself.

"We love the small community living, and really the environment for the kids," Monsma commented.

"With the size of Hawarden, we always know our kids are safe. They're at that age, where they'll hop on their bikes, go to swim lessons, and go spend time with their friends," Monsma explained of the safe environment in Hawarden.

In a small community the younger children look up to the high school students as idols. Monsma recalls one of his son's experiences while closely following the West Sioux High School athletics.

"My son said to me, "Dad, the high school football players came to our classroom and signed autographs for us."" The local young stars of the community had made an awe inspiring impression on Monsma's son.

Although Monsma commutes daily for his job, he and Denise are happy with life in Hawarden, and they don't plan on relocating anytime soon.

"We really didn't want to take the kids out of the West Sioux school system," Monsma explained. His three boys, Jordan (10), Josh (8) and Jack (5) have spent most of their young lives living in Hawarden, taking advantage of the opportunity to participate in several sports, follow the high school athletics and enjoy the close knit Midwest community.

"We're amazed, even at their ages, how busy life is," Monsma said about the boys and their commitment to basketball, baseball and soccer. "I mean, it is just non-stop, from one sport to the next."

Monsma's wife, Denise, is also an active member of the community. She spends time with the PBS initiative at the school and is president of the local arts council when she's not busy raising three active boys.

Brian and Denise met while attaining their master's degrees in Health Administration at the University of Iowa in Iowa City.

***This article originally appreared in the Hawarden Independent / Ireton Examiner newspaper by Sedgwick Publishing on April 10, 2008.***