“That is one thing the board has been taking a look at and planning for 3 years and it got here to the suitable place,” stated Dana Michalovic, government director of Good Neighbor Well being Clinic and Crimson Logan Dental Clinic.
The aim of the brand new 1,400-square-foot website on Hanover Avenue is to extend the variety of sufferers the clinic can present look after, in addition to enhance the variety of volunteers, together with college students from the Geisel College of Drugs at Dartmouth and residents of Dartmouth Medical Heart. Hitchcock.
“I feel the expansion will probably be natural,” Michalovic stated. “…This program will evolve as demand will increase and our means to recruit volunteers and rent workers (grows).”
Michalovic famous that though plans for the Lebanon clinic have been within the works for years, they’re bearing fruit at a time when medical care has grow to be more and more troublesome to come back by.
“Entry to care may be very troublesome within the Higher Valley proper now,” he stated. “Between Covid and the issue in accessing care, particularly major well being care, we have now seen a rise in demand.”
Michalovic stated he anticipates the brand new website’s proximity, 103 Hanover Avenue, to Route 120 and bus stops will assist appeal to new sufferers, together with these from Claremont. Sullivan County Transportation launched a bus route between Lebanon and Claremont final summer season. At the moment, 1 / 4 of Good Neighbor’s roughly 1,000 sufferers are from Hartford and 1 / 4 from Lebanon, and the remaining from surrounding areas, he stated.
“We actually need to have the ability to have individuals who stay outdoors of these two core cities so we are able to get to us simply,” he stated.
Additionally, having a location in New Hampshire will make it simpler for suppliers licensed within the Granite state to supply care, he stated.
For a number of years, Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital in Lebanon has allowed Good Neighbor to make use of the house at APD to host satellite tv for pc clinics, Michalovic stated. This new lease provides Good Neighbor an area of its personal.
Initially, the brand new house will depend on volunteers to be open restricted hours, providing the identical specialty clinics that at the moment happen at APD, Michalovic stated. These clinics embrace dermatology, girls’s well being and first care. The brand new house can also be slated to incorporate an ophthalmology suite. Good Neighbor plans to purchase tools from New London Hospital, which introduced final summer season that it was suspending its ophthalmology service.
Michalovic anticipates opening in late September or early October, relying on the velocity of some renovations on the former Allstate insurance coverage workplace. He has utilized to town for a constructing allow. Plans for the house embrace new flooring, electrical and plumbing work. Lately, he stated, “relating to building, there is a longer lead time.”
Dartmouth Well being has offered a $15,000 donation to assist the brand new clinic, it introduced in a information launch Tuesday. The Mascoma Financial institution Basis additionally offered funding for the undertaking, Michalovic stated.
“Good Neighbor Well being Clinics is a real accomplice and a significant asset within the Higher Valley in making certain there’s equitable, high-quality look after all,” stated Barbara Farnsworth, director of neighborhood well being partnerships at Dartmouth Well being, within the DH launch. “We’re proud to assist their mission and work by this donation.”
If all goes in line with plan, Michalovic stated on the finish of three years: “I can think about renewing that lease.”
Do not miss a factor. Enroll right here for VTDigger’s weekly e-mail on Vermont hospitals, well being care traits, insurance coverage, and state well being care coverage.
 100vw, 610px”/></noscript><img data-attachment-id=)
