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6/6/2025
“Missoula This Week” is reported and written By Katie Fairbanks. Send your Missoula news and tips to kfairbanks@montanafreepress.org.
After years of planning, fundraising and construction, Missoula’s first dedicated hospice center will begin taking patients in July.
Dozens of supporters gathered Tuesday for a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Hope Hospice Center, located across from Home Depot at 3615 Union Pacific Street. The Partners Hope Foundation created the center and plans to sustain its operation through ongoing fundraising. Partners in Home Care, a home health care nonprofit, will provide clinical care services at the center.
Hope Hospice Center, the second facility of its kind in the state, will help serve Montana’s aging population, Amanda Yeoman Melro, the center’s executive director, told ԹϺ.
“We have a lot of people who live alone and a lot of people who live rural,” she said. “We do really want to utilize the center to help serve those people who have limited resources in their home, and also for those that, when being at home and dying at home, is just not an option.”
Betsy Bach, the Partners Hope Foundation board chair, told MTFP the idea for the center came from community member discussions in 2017 about the need for inpatient hospice services in Missoula. The group, which would later grow into the 19-member foundation board, hired a consultant and began fundraising, she said.
The foundation raised $15 million in private donations to build the 15,200-square-foot center on land donated by Terry and Patt Payne and their family.
“We’re just so grateful for the community support because this wouldn’t have happened otherwise,” Bach said.
The center includes 12 private rooms, a kitchen and dining room, a living room with a resource library, a spa room and an outdoor area. The building also includes a private send-off room with its own exit where visitors can say goodbye to their deceased loved one and perform small ceremonies, Yeoman Melro said. That includes smudging, the practice among many Indigenous communities of burning certain plants to cleanse or bless a space.
“We want to support all belief systems and their end-of-life goals and processes,” she said. “For some people, they might be very spiritual, others may be religious, others may just want something meaningful. And so us being able to cultivate an end-of-life experience for each patient and family that is on their terms, we really want to be culturally sensitive to that.”
Partners in Home Care expects to hire 20 employees to run the 24/7 center, including nurses, nurse practitioners, social workers, chaplains and housekeeping staff, said Corin Schneider, the nonprofit’s CEO. The center will provide residential hospice care, higher-level inpatient care and respite care for family or other caregivers.
Chaplains will help with end-of-life ceremonies and bereavement support, and social workers will be available to help patients and families with other challenges, Schneider said. The center is also partnering with Missoula Aging Services and Tamarack Grief Resource Center to provide education and support services for the community.
The center will likely serve patients from across the state and beyond, Yeoman Melro said. Benefis Health System operates the Peace Hospice House in Great Falls, which is typically pretty full from hospital referrals, she said.
Hospice-eligible patients can be admitted directly to the center or can be referred from the hospital, Schneider said. The center will help free up hospital beds and provide a more appropriate setting for many patients, she said.
Partners in Home Care will coordinate insurance billing. While a room-and-board charge for residential patients will not be covered by insurance, the cost will be based on a sliding scale, Yeoman Melro said. The foundation’s compassionate care fund will help pay the room-and-board fee for those who cannot afford it, she said.
“We do really want to help everybody who’s in need and when they need to be here,” Yeoman Melro said.
St. Pats’ maternity center closing in October, some doctors criticize lack of staff input
Providence St. Patrick Hospital will close its family maternity center in October due to “ongoing external challenges,” the hospital announced Tuesday.
“This decision was not made lightly and was guided by our commitment to providing high-quality, compassionate care to our community while being good stewards of our resources,” hospital officials wrote in a press release.
Flat and declining birth rates and workforce shortages contributed to the decision to close the center on Oct. 10, according to Providence. St. Patrick Hospital opened the maternity center in 2015, after a 40-year delivery hiatus, and expected about 300 births per year, the Missoulian reported at the time. Providence did not immediately reply to questions about how many births the hospital currently handles and how that number has changed.
Providence is working with Western Montana Clinic and Community Medical Center to transition care for pregnant patients, according to the press release.
Missoula’s other hospital, Community Medical Center, delivers about 1,300 babies per year, said Megan Condra, director of marketing and community relations. The hospital has capacity but anticipates needing to hire more staff to accommodate the increase in patient volume following the closure of St. Pats’ maternity center, Condra said.
Providence staff affected by the closure will have the chance to apply for open positions within the organization. St. Patrick Hospital will continue to provide nonsurgical and surgical gynecological care and manage any urgent medical needs through its emergency department.
On Wednesday, members of Western Montana Clinic’s Obstetrics and Gynecology Department issued a letter to the community to “correct misleading statements” about the closure made in a memo to hospital staff. Western Montana Clinic has a location in the hospital and has partnered with St. Pats for decades, the letter said. Neither Family Maternity Center physicians and staff nor Western Montana Clinic leaders were consulted about the decision, the OB/GYNs wrote.
“The characterization of this unilateral closure as a ‘collaborative effort’ is not just inaccurate — it is a betrayal of that partnership and an insult to the dedication of each care provider, who has covered both scheduled and emergent women’s healthcare at Saint Patrick Hospital — every hour, of every day and every week, year after year,” the letter said.
“Healthcare decisions of this magnitude demand input from medical professionals who understand the clinical implications, and from community members who depend on these services. Excluding the very people who provide the care represents a fundamental failure of healthcare governance and a dangerous departure from patient-centered decision-making.”
In a statement sent to the hospital administration, Family Maternity Center staff expressed disappointment and concern about the closure. Many nurses relocated to join the center when it opened nearly 10 years ago, the letter said.
“To hear that this space is now being repurposed for profit … is a painful blow, but what is even more disheartening is the way this decision has been handled. Despite a year of internal planning, we were given just 90 minutes notice to attend the meeting announcing the closure. We were offered no representation, no clarity about our futures, and no real chance to speak to the realities we now face.”
A Providence spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter.
5 Things to Know in Missoula
The Missoula County Compensation Board on Monday approved pay raises for elected officials. The board, which includes the county commissioners, sheriff and other elected officials, makes recommendations that must be approved by the commissioners. The board approved a 3% increase to the elected officials’ uniform base pay, increasing it from $49.35 an hour to $50.83. The increase will allow a salary increase for sheriff deputies and detention officers, whose pay is set as a percentage of the sheriff’s wage. Under state law, some officials are eligible for additional pay for longevity or holding a combined office, like sheriff/coroner. Those percentages remained the same. The board also increased the pay for justice of the peace from 80% of a district court judge’s salary to 85%, or $129,854.40. As it has historically, the board set the county attorney’s salary at 100% of a district court judge’s salary, which is $159,806.40. County Attorney Matt Jennings is the highest-paid elected official in the county, followed by Sheriff Jeremiah Petersen and Clerk/Treasurer Tyler Gernant.
The Missoula City Council Monday voted to increase parking ticket fees starting Jan. 1, 2026. Jodi Pilgrim, director of the city’s parking commission, said the increases are needed to discourage repeat parking violations and should not affect most drivers who follow the rules. Of the more than 12,000 downtown parking tickets issued in 2024, 64% were first meter violations, Pilgrim said. About 82% of vehicles cited only received that one ticket, which is only a warning, she said. In the University District residential parking permit area, 78% of cited vehicles only received one $20 ticket. The downtown meter violations currently increase by $5 from $0 for the first ticket to $20 for the fifth. The count resets after 180 days of no violations. The new scale will increase by $10 from $0 to $40. Improper parking violations, such as blocking a fire hydrant or bike lane, previously came with a $20 ticket. They will now start at $20 and increase by $20 up to $100 and reset after one year of no violations. Parking violations in the residential permit area will follow the same scale.
Missoula Mayor Andrea Davis appointed Lonnie Rash as the new Missoula Fire Department chief. Rash, currently the chief of Spokane County Fire District 8, will start the week of July 7. Missoula Chief Gordy Hughes is retiring June 30 after a 32-year career in the fire service. Rash, who grew up in Bozeman, has more than 25 years of fire service experience, with the last 10 in leadership positions. He is currently leading the development of a new $6.3 million fire station and the renovation of another station. The Missoula City Council must confirm Rash’s appointment.
On Wednesday, the Missoula City Council approved a $676,890 contract with JAG Contracting for a Clark Fork River access and restoration project. The work, funded by 2018 Open Space Bond funds, includes improvements under the Beartracks Bridge on the south side of the river, under the Madison Street Bridge on the north side of the river, at the Toole Park river access and other sites on the south side of the river between the two bridges. Restoration work is needed to address erosion from a dramatic increase in recreational use of the Clark Fork River in the past decade, according to the city.
Residents can review the results of the Transform Brooks-Connect Midtown Study during an open house on Thursday, June 12. The study evaluated two possible options for rapid transit service along the Brooks Street corridor — a center-running bus lane and a side-running bus lane. The rapid transit plan would also include permanent bus stops, a new transit center in Midtown and high-frequency connections to downtown. HDR, the consulting team that conducted the study, will present results during a joint Mountain Line and Missoula Redevelopment Agency board meeting at 10 a.m. Thursday. The same information will be shared at the open house from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. at Stockman Bank, 3616 Brooks St. Attendees can review the results or watch a brief presentation at 6:15 p.m.
Verbatim
“I, too, have several students in my classroom this year who are either children of parents from [the LGBTQ+] community or who identify as a member of this community as well. They have seen my flag up in my classroom all year, and last Friday, they had to walk in and notice it was gone. I just can’t fathom what that felt like to them to walk into their class that’s supposed to be warm and accepting and notice that that symbol was now removed. And the message that sends to our students that we don’t support them. It’s very heartbreaking. Because of this, I think it’s really important that we do use this route to adopt the flag as an official city flag.”
—Petrea Torma, a fourth-grade teacher, during the Missoula City Council meeting on Monday, in support of a proposal to recognize the Pride flag as an official flag of the city in response to a new state law restricting the display of the flag on government property, including in public schools.
Last week, Missoula County Public Schools asked teachers to remove Pride flags or other non-compliant flags to comply with the new state law, according to the district. On Tuesday afternoon, Superintendent Micah Hill told principals it was okay to have Pride flags back in classrooms.
Gov. Greg Gianforte wrote in a social media post on Tuesday that the city council “should be ashamed for imposing a pride flag on schools and dividing their community.”
The city’s recognition of the flag does not require it to be displayed anywhere, City Council Member Mike Nugent said during the Monday meeting. Read more about the council’s decision here.
Might be Fun
Nonprofit theater company MissCast Productions is putting on the play “Trio” at the Zootown Arts Community Center next week. The one-act drama written by Jane Best centers on the complexity of sibling relationships, as estranged triplets reckon with something that happened 10 years ago.
“Trio” will play at the ZACC daily from June 11 to 15 at 7:30 p.m., and June 14 and 15 at 2 p.m. Open captions will be available at all performances for the deaf/hearing impaired community. Audio description will be provided on June 13 and 14 for the blind/visually impaired community. Ticket information is .