VIRGINIA — Essentia Health-Virginia has begun construction on an expansion that is set to nearly double the capacity of its emergency department. The expansion includes a dedicated behavioral health suite and five additional exam rooms.
With a targeted completion date of 2027, the $13 million expansion is being financed by Essentia Health and its regional foundation, along with private contributions and a $3.3 million grant from the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board.
“Essentia Health is proud to invest in this project, ensuring high-quality emergency care is easily accessible on the Iron Range,” noted Sam Stone, the administrator for Essentia Health-Virginia, in a statement after the groundbreaking ceremony on May 20.
Growing mental health demands
Increased service demand since the COVID-19 pandemic has made more space essential, according to Emergency Room physician Dr. Brian Junnila.
“We saw higher patient acuity during the time of COVID, when we had patients boarding in the ER,” Junnila said. “We really kind of realized that the Virginia ER was undersized to serve the population that attends.”
The expansion will increase emergency department bed capacity from seven to 12.
Essentia Health-Virginia provides care for a wide geographic area stretching all the way up to International Falls — more than an hour and a half commute — in addition to serving communities like Hoyt Lakes and Cotton.
“It’s still a large catchment area and serves a high volume and a high acuity patient population,” Junnila said. “So when we started realizing that we’re going to have to use hallway beds to, you know, effectively and efficiently take care of patients, we realized we need a bigger space.”
The two-bed behavioral suite has also become essential as mental health issues have become increasingly prevalent.
According to data from the Centers for Disease Control, 5,215 out of every 100,000 emergency visits were related to mental health as of March 2026. That number is down from the beginning of COVID, when 7,898 out of 100,000 emergency visits in April 2020 were related to mental health.
A worker moves materials within the construction area near the Essentia Health-Virginia emergency department on Tuesday.
Jake Przytarski / Duluth Media Group
Still, the need to provide adequate mental healthcare in emergency departments remains crucial.
“This is, sadly, a patient population that is growing,” Stone said. “There are increased stressors in everybody’s lives. There are drugs and alcohol that, unfortunately, people struggle with that lead to behavioral health episodes, and it has been increasing.”
The behavioral suite will provide essential mental healthcare in an isolated, private space.
“We wanted a dedicated space to take care of them in a private and secure and confidential space that is separated from the rest of the ER,” Junnila said.
Addressing rural accessibility
While the Essentia Health-Virginia expansion aims to bolster services across the Iron Range, the broader landscape of rural healthcare accessibility continues to face significant hurdles both regionally and nationwide.
Data from the National Institute of Health reveals a troubling trend in rural medicine, where a combination of staffing deficits, fiscal pressures, and declining patient volumes has triggered the shuttering of more than 130 rural hospitals since 2010.
The disappearance of these community facilities frequently leaves residents caught between the burden of extensive travel and the risk of bypassing essential medical attention.
“What we’ll see and experience, is people will just forego their care, as opposed to driving another hour to get to the healthcare that they need,” Stone said. “And so their symptoms worsen, and it becomes more complex to care for something that may have been a little easier to care for if they were accessing it in their own backyard.”
Virtual visits through telehealth services are one way in which hospitals are attempting to address this issue, though it’s not a foolproof solution, especially for those who may not be technologically savvy.
“We have an older population in our region, and so there are some challenges with that,” Stone said. “But that is a growing service that is directly trying to mitigate these accessibility issues.”
Construction workers gather around the emergency department entrance at Essentia Health-Virginia on Tuesday.
Jake Przytarski / Duluth Media Group
Providing specialty care is another challenge in rural healthcare settings, according to Junnila.
“I think access to that timely care is challenging when you live in a rural community; oftentimes you have to drive farther to the urban hospital,” he said.
Access to obstetric care is one example of the challenges related to specialty care, with a general lack of birthing centers on the Iron Range leading to long commutes for expecting parents.
“You’re driving an hour and a half for services to deliver a baby if you’re a young mom in International Falls,” Stone said. “That generally is the most complex part of this is the transportation issues and the large geography that people have to have to cover.”
Essentia Health-Virginia, in response, is working to establishing itself as a central hub for various specialty care services.
“It seems that Essentia (Health) is trying to make Virginia a hub, and I think that that demonstrates a dedication to rural emergency medicine, but also just rural healthcare in general,” Junnila said. “We have physicians that come up and have office hours, like once a week in the Virginia clinic, for urology and cardiology, and we have neurologists who come up.”
The efforts to improve rural healthcare are still ongoing, though Stone is encouraged by the progress made in a short amount of time.
“I’m just super proud to be part of an organization that is dedicating resources to rural emergency medicine, which is my specialty,” Stone said. “We’ve identified a problem. Essentia Health is investing resources to build it up, and it just makes me really proud to be part of this team.”