December 14, 2009. The Lakeland Ledger.
WINTER HAVEN | Central Florida Health Care expects to have a primary care clinic up and running in Winter Haven by this time next year.
A ground breaking took place Monday on the Winter Haven site where the 10,000-square-foot building will be. More than 60 people attended, including city and county elected officials and area residents.
Central Florida Health Care will lease the building that’s being built at First Street and Avenue O Northwest, across from the Winter Haven Post Office. The new clinic will be near a bus shelter and a senior apartment complex and the Winter Haven Police Department, said Gaye Williams, chief executive officer of Central Florida Health Care.
Construction is scheduled to start in the spring.
“It’s very exciting,” Williams said. “We’ve wanted this for a long time.”
The opening can’t come too soon for Polk Ecumenical Action Council for Empowerment, a grassroots group spearheaded by churches countywide, whose members continue pressing the Polk County Commission for five primary care centers.
This would be the second primary care center receiving funds from Polk County’s indigent care sales tax, which Polk voters approved in 2004. The other is Lakeland Primary Care, also operated by Central Florida.
Lakeland Regional Medical Center paid renovation costs for an existing building to help establish Lakeland Primary Care. Winter Haven Hospital expects to help with the Winter Haven clinic, but the details haven’t been finalized.
“We believe it will move some people who currently get their care in the emergency room to that clinic,” said WHH President Lance Anastasio, adding, “Even with our emergency department and our (hospital-run) primary care centers, there’s unmet need.”
Polk County has a shortage of primary care doctors, who are necessary to give people a “medical home” for coordinated care, he said.
The primary care center in Winter Haven will be less than a mile from the hospital and have some night and weekend hours, Anastasio said. He said he thinks those factors will encourage people to use it for regular care, reducing their need for emergency room visits.
Central Florida, which receives some federal support as a federally qualified health center, celebrated its 37th anniversary this year. It has clinics in Frostproof. Dundee, Lakeland, Wauchula and Avon Park.
As a federally qualified center, Central Florida doesn’t require patients to have health insurance. It charges uninsured patients on a sliding scale based on their income. Its percentage of uninsured patients has increased with the economic slowdown, Williams said.
