Martinsville Bulletin, Inc.
P. O. Box 3711
204 Broad Street
Martinsville, Virginia 24115
276-638-8801
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Friday, August 31, 2007
By MICKEY POWELL - Bulletin Staff Writer
The Martinsville-Henry County Coalition for Health and Wellness announced Thursday it will open a community health center near Bassett.
The coalition received a $596,921 grant from the federal Health Resources and Service Administration (HRSA) to open the health center, which will be in a 5,100-square-foot space in Riverview Commons, next to CVS Pharmacy.
As a Federally Qualified Community Health Center, it will offer primary and preventive health care services regardless of a patient’s ability to pay, said Barbara Jackman, executive director of the coalition.
Fees for services will be based on a patient’s income, but “we can serve anybody,” she said.
Jackman said the health center will be similar to one that Danville-based Piedmont Access to Health Services operates in uptown Martinsville.
It will not be a free clinic, she said. Such a clinic already exists in a doctor’s office building next to Memorial Hospital of Martinsville and Henry County.
Rather, Jackman said the health center will be “a step in the continuum of care” for people who generally cannot afford fees charged at most doctor’s offices but can afford to pay nominal amounts.
Among those whom the coalition expects will use the center are people on Medicare or Medicaid, plus people lacking insurance and those with insurance who have high co-pays, she said.
The Bassett center also will offer health education, case management, care coordination and medication assistance services, she added.
Bassett was targeted for the health center due to economic conditions there, Jackman said, noting industrial job losses in recent years.
“This is a particularly underserved portion of Henry County,” she said, “ ... with a substantial number of residents lacking access to affordable primary health care.”
About 40 percent of patients treated at such centers have no insurance coverage, and many others have inadequate coverage, said Neal Graham, chief executive officer of the Virginia Community Healthcare Association.
Plans are for the health center to be open by the end of the year, Jackman said. It will be open on weekdays, Saturdays and some evenings, she said, so area residents will find it convenient.
A staff of about 10 people will be hired. The staff will include a physician who will serve as the center’s medical director, plus a nurse practitioner.
Although a doctor and nurse practitioner have not yet been hired, “we’ve had some conversations with various people” about the jobs, Jackman said.
The HRSA awarded the coalition the grant through President Bush’s High Poverty County Initiative, which Graham said brings health care services to counties having a large number of residents with low incomes.
HRSA grants “strengthen and support efforts to extend the health care safety net to ... Virginians who otherwise might not have access to care,” Graham said.
The coalition currently has no plans to open health care centers anywhere else in the county, Jackman said. |
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