Pocatello transitional care center remodeling to include first-of-its-kind respiratory unit in Southeast Idaho

POCATELLO, Idaho (KIFI)– Gateway Transitional Care Center is remodeling its facility to include a new 'Vent/Trach Unit' for patients recovering from injuries or respiratory illness; the unit will be the first of its kind in Southeast Idaho.

Gavin Monteath, CEO of Gateway Transitional Care Center, said over the past seven years, the basement levels of their building have gone through multiple potential project designs, but the care center settled on a respiratory rehabilitation wing when they saw patients coming out of the hospital traveling out-of-state to get care for breathing problems before they could return home.

"There's not another one of these units from Salt Lake to Boise," said Monteath. "There's a lot of patients that are actually from this area, that have families here, that want to be back in Southeast Idaho that haven't had the capacity to do it because they don't have a long term care space where they can get enough therapy, or [they] need a long term care setting to be able to help them breathe. This unit will be able to help some of those patients get back to Southeast Idaho."

Along with the Vent/Trach Unit, the remodel will also add a new 10,000 square foot Outpatient Therapy Gym, and space for Medicaid-only patient care coming in the future.

Monteath said the new unit has been a long time coming, and the COVID-19 pandemic set development on the back burner while the care center transitioned to helping Coronavirus patients. But project contractor, Headwaters Construction, expects to have the unit open and ready to provide pioneering care to the Portneuf Valley in late summer 2026.

"It's been seven years that we've been working on this, and Covid kind of threw a wrench in a few things for us," said Monteath "...But my team here at Gateway has been stellar and stayed consistent and been able to move the needle to be able to do something like this... to put this kind of an investment into the building to help the community."

Gateway Transitional Care Center is hosting a groundbreaking ceremony for their new Vent/Trach Unit on Thursday, June 12, at 11:30 a.m. at 527 Memorial Dr. in Pocatello.