PINEDALE — Sublette County Health (SCH) earned Wyoming’s 2022 Community Star awarded by the National Organization of State Offices of Rural Health (NOSORH).
The SCH recognition was announced this morning as part of National Rural Health Day, and annual celebration that honors those serving the vital needs of nearly 61,000,000 rural Americans.
SCH was tabbed during a nationwide call for nominations seeking individuals, organizations and coalitions making a positive impact in rural communities.
Sublette County is currently the only county in Wyoming without a hospital. But voters elected to form a hospital district in 2020 that would work toward building the first critical access hospital in the county.
The District was recently approved for a $32.2 million loan from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Rural Development program. The Sublette County Commissioners committed another $20 million to construct an attached long-term care facility.
Those efforts were part of the reason that NOSORH finds the 2022 Community Star award well deserved, according to a statement released by SCH this morning.
“Practicing rural healthcare requires a very small team of dedicated individuals to put in an incredible amount of effort. We don’t have a ‘deep bench’ because we are such a small community,” said Sublette County Health Public Relations Director Kari DeWitt. “The heavy work of planning and developing the hospital falls on the same individuals who are also managing the current clinic and focused on the best patient care. It’s beyond going the extra mile, it’s an extra 1,000 miles, but this team is committed to seeing it through.”
Sublette County Health will be featured in the 2022 edition of the Community Star eBook, which will be available on the official NRHD website, PowerofRural.org, on Nov. 17, 2022.
The eBook will showcase the stories of Community Stars from 48 states, exemplifying this year’s NRHD theme of “Driving Change and Going the Extra Mile.”
