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HOME > ABOUT > PRESS > NAPA COUNTY LOOKS INTO HEALTH CLINIC IN AMERICAN CANYON
Article published - February 1, 2010
Credit: TIMES - HERALD
Napa County looks into the need for health clinic in American Canyon
By Rachel Raskin-Zrihen
About a year from now, the city's first low-cost medical clinic could open, depending in part on a study under way at the American Canyon Family Resource Center.
The city has no hospital, though there are a few private practice physicians.
Three Touro University students are conducting a study for Napa County's Clinic Ole to help assess the need for a sliding scale primary care medical clinic in American Canyon.
"We're working with Touro University and the Family Resource Center to survey residents and assess the need for services and where a Clinic Ole would make sense in the city," said Touro physicians assistant/ public health student Andrea Mang, 27.
The American Canyon Family Resource Center is providing space for the students to survey residents, executive director Sherry Tennyson and the students said.
The students plan three focus groups in the next two weeks, they said.
"I think it's a great idea," Tennyson said. "We have a lot of folks who really need care. Transportation is an issue for many of our clients and, being the county's second largest city, it would be great to have some services, like easily accessible health care."
American Canyon Mayor Leon Garcia, a medical professional, said he'd love to see such a clinic in town, but knows funding is an ongoing issue.
"It's a matter of the economy," Garcia said. "Many nonprofits are struggling. But, Clinic Ole is a great organization and I'd look forward to their locating in American Canyon."
Clinic Ole officials have been discussing partnership possibilities with Touro for two years, Ole executive director Beatrice Bostick said.
"American Canyon has been on our minds for a long time, but it's always been hard to pin down the demographics and the need -- what the market share would be," Bostick said. "So Touro is launching an analysis of the population and needs in American Canyon, where a clinic might locate and what its size and exact function should be."
Napa County's Community Health Clinic Ole was founded in 1972 to serve the local and migrant agricultural workers, Bostick said. It has since expanded to include other low-income populations, she said.
"Napa County has no county clinics like Solano does, so the county doesn't provide primary care," Bostick said.
Clinic Ole is a federally Qualified Health Center providing medical and dental care to thousands of patients annually, she said. A Federally qualified health center is a special Medicare designation for clinics providing services to under-served communities.
Four clinics are in Napa County, including one in a downtown Napa day shelter and for students at Napa Valley College, according to the agency's Web site. Some 600 people with American Canyon addresses are regular patients of the Napa clinic, Bostick said.
Were an American Canyon clinic to open, Clinic Ole and Touro would provide medical personnel, and students would have the benefit of gaining community clinic experience, Bostick said.
Though any clinic is at least a year off, the fact that it's being considered may be a sign of life in the struggling local economy.
"We were looking very strongly at American Canyon before the economy collapsed, but that took the wind out of our sales," Bostick said. "The economy seems to be recovering to the point that it may support a clinic and a partnership with Touro makes it much more possible."
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