The North Tama Medical Associates’s clinic building located in downtown Traer at 200 Walnut Street pictured on Thursday, March 26, 2026. The building was previously occupied by MercyOne which closed this past December, transferring patient records to its Reinbeck clinic. The Waterloo-based Peoples Community Health Clinic plans to open a Federally Qualified Health Center in the clinic space in mid-April. PHOTO BY RUBY F. MCALLISTER

TRAER – When word got out last November that Traer was to become the third local MercyOne clinic casualty in as many years alongside Dysart and Gladbrook, the rural community of roughly 1,500 people was justifiably concerned considering Tama County has no hospitals and no urgent care centers. But just six weeks after MercyOne closed its downtown Traer doors in early December, the building’s owners, the nonprofit North Tama Medical Associates which formed more than 50 years ago, brought good news – a new provider with local roots, Peoples Community Health Clinic, had been found.

“On December 10, 2025, the Iowa Primary Care Association (IPCA) notified Peoples that MercyOne Traer Family Medicine … had ceased operations … and identified the need for a community health satellite clinic to ensure continued access to care. The closure of this clinic [created] healthcare access barriers for the rural area of Tama County,” Peoples CEO Christine Kemp said in an email to the newspaper last week when asked how the partnership between the Traer nonprofit and Waterloo-based Peoples Clinic came to be.

Kemp continued, “Peoples Clinic reached out to the North Tama Medical Associates regarding their plans for the continuing local access to medical care. They agreed to meet with clinic leadership and the IPCA the following week to discuss their options. After that meeting, North Tama Medical Associates … expressed interest in collaborating with Peoples to ensure the continuation of medical care in the community.”

Peoples Community Health Clinic, Inc. was established in 1976 and currently operates two Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC) in Waterloo and Clarksville (Peoples Clinic Butler County). According to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, FQHCs are community-based, federally funded clinics that provide essential services, including primary, dental, and mental health care, regardless of a patient’s ability to pay. Such outpatient clinics offer sliding scale fees and receive enhanced Medicaid and Medicare reimbursements.

In a letter published by this newspaper on Dec. 5, 2025, the North Tama Medical Associates Board of Directors (Jammie Howard, Rex McKee, Robert Ketter, Michael Reuman, Kurt Ketter, Jared Bauch) did their best to quell worry percolating in the community prior to the closure, writing: “About November 7, 2025, the staff at Mercy One Clinic in Traer were informed Mercy was closing the Traer clinic. At the same time, the Board of Directors … was informed that MercyOne (Trinity Heath) wanted to discuss modification of their clinic lease with us as they no longer intended to provide medical services in Traer. … If you, as we, have been reading about the issues nationally concerning medical services you know it is a complex problem. But this is not a ‘the sky is falling’ situation and none of us is Chicken Little; we have been here before. In 1973 we had no provider of health services, no pharmacy, no physical therapist, and no chiropractor. The Traer Ambulance and EMT service had just been started. But this community rallied to [our] request for support and the result was the present clinic building which opened for our medical care in 1975.”

The entrance to the soon-to-open Peoples Clinic satellite clinic in downtown Traer, pictured last week. PHOTO BY RUBY F. MCALLISTER

That building, located on the west side of downtown at the corner of Walnut and Second streets across from Hometown Foods grocery, has been the site of much activity the last few weeks as Peoples Clinic works to ready the space for its grand opening tentatively slated for next month.

“We were hoping to open the first week of April, but it’s looking to be a little later than that so most likely the middle of April,” Peoples Clinic marketing specialist Libby Mann told the newspaper on March 21. Earlier in the month, Peoples Clinic advocacy coordinator Danielle Vance told the newspaper the new clinic planned to host a community open house “in the near future.”

“We just want to make sure that the office is in top shape and looks nice before we host anything there,” she explained.

In addition to a new roof and interior work, CEO Kemp told the newspaper, “Peoples has ordered a large logo sign to go on the side of the building as well as a sign that will appear by the steps/ramp of the entrance.”

Iowa’s rural health care landscape

Access to health care in rural Iowa has been an issue for years, with cost often cited as one of the biggest drivers of clinic and hospital closures.

Common Sense Institute of Iowa (CSI Iowa), a self-described non-partisan research organization dedicated to the protection and promotion of Iowa’s economy, published a report in August 2024 titled “Iowa’s Healthcare Landscape.” Key findings from the report include:

-Thanks primarily to rising operating costs, over a third of Iowa hospitals and 60% of rural hospitals operated at a loss in 2022.

-Over the last 15 years, 250 more healthcare facilities in Iowa have closed than have opened, with mental health centers leading all provider types in net closings.

-Rural Iowa has 17% fewer physicians per capita than its urban areas.

Christine Kemp, Chief Executive Officer of Peoples Community Health Clinic.

While MercyOne did not directly cite cost in its communications with this newspaper as the impetus behind its decision to close the Traer clinic, Traer Mayor Pete Holden indicated cost was indeed a factor, telling the newspaper that upon asking MercyOne representatives last fall if there was anything Traer could do to keep the clinic in operation, he was told the decision was ‘financial,’ resulting from a ‘$200,000 a year shortfall’; however, Holden also questioned MercyOne’s business practices, telling the newspaper, “I can’t believe they’re that bad of businessmen that they’re losing that much.”

‘So why Traer?’ the newspaper asked Kemp, CEO of Peoples Clinic. The answer, it seems, lies at the heart of Peoples’ mission that ‘all people are entitled to health care and the support they need, regardless of insurance or ability to pay.’

“While Peoples reviews the needs of the communities in their service area annually, it was not in our plans at this moment to add additional satellite clinics,” Kemp said of her non-profit’s decision to expand to Traer. “This opportunity came about because a community in our service area was losing their current medical access and wanted to find a solution. After speaking with the representative of the North Tama [clinic], it was apparent that their views aligned with Peoples Clinic’s goals of reducing people’s barriers to health care and continuing access to care. As a community health center, Peoples is very sensitive to the barriers that are faced in rural communities.”

With the sudden news this past week that Traer’s only pharmacy, NuCara Pharmacy, is being shuttered effective Tuesday, March 31, Peoples Clinic’s grand opening certainly can’t come soon enough for those in the Traer area (and beyond) weary of weathering a continuing downturn in rural health care access.

For more information on Peoples Community Health Clinic, including career opportunities, visit https://www.peoples-clinic.com.

Telegraph Note: This story is part of the Times-Republican’s annual Progress: Region special section publishing in the March 29 weekend edition. It will also publish in the Friday, April 3 print edition of the Telegraph.