WEAU: Van Orden announces $600K in funding for Chippewa County morgue, comments on ICE working TSA

CHIPPEWA FALLS, Wis. (WEAU) - $600,000 are coming to Chippewa County to help fund its morgue services.

Congressman Derrick Van Orden made a visit to Chippewa Falls to highlight the funding.

“After HSHS closed, they have a critical requirement for a morgue here, so they don’t have to drive all the way to Altoona. And since HSHS has closed, my office has been working to make up the difference in the healthcare that was provided there all the way through the life cycle when someone ends up in a morgue,” said Van Orden.

When HSHS pulled its services from the region, Chippewa County’s morgue temporarily closed. A new location for the services had to be found. This funding is meant to make sure something like that doesn’t happen again.

“This is very important because any time we put public safety in the hands of private business as we were with HSHS as you can see when business closes, now we have to find means to do a morgue,” said Sheriff Travis Hakes with Chippewa County.

While there, Van Orden also commented on the ongoing shutdown.

“I voted four times to pay our federal workers, four times to play our federal workers so we have TSA agents, the Coast Guard out there, we’ve got FEMA defunded by the Democrat party and that’s unacceptable. We just a big rash of storms across the country, FEMA’s not getting paid, the people protecting our borders, the Coast Guard, they’re not getting paid. These are hardworking, a lot of them are union folks and they need to get paid for service,” said Van Orden.