Mancos clinic stuck in grant-funding Catch-22

Mancos clinic stuck in grant-funding Catch-22

Aug. 21, 2001

By Tom Vaughan
Mancos Times Editor

Supporters of a community health clinic in Mancos were dealt a severe blow when the third and final round of New Start/Expansion grants for fiscal year 2001 was announced Aug. 15. Mancos didn’t make the list.

Ironically, Mike Guillette received a call on Aug. 17 from Chris Wiant, president of the Caring for Colorado Foundation, announcing the award of a $150,000 Caring for Colorado grant to remodel the former clinic building — contingent on winning the federal grant.

The $500,000 grant from the Department of Health and Human Services was sought by Valley-Wide Health Services, Inc., of Alamosa, to begin operation of a community health clinic in Mancos. The proposed site is the former clinic building on E. Railroad Avenue, presently owned by Michael and Alice O’Traynor.

The Montezuma County Hospital District board agreed to lease the building on a short-term basis in order to hold it for clinic use if the grant came through. They also agreed to sponsor a USDA loan and to pick up the sponsorship of the request to the Caring for Colorado Foundation, which Mancos Valley Resources originally sponsored.

MCHD board president Randy Smith, on being apprised of the absence of the Mancos clinic in the third round of funding, said Monday, "I’m very disappointed." He stated that he would go ahead and sign the USDA loan application to keep the options open, but added, "We need to regroup and look at the options."

Valley-Wide CEO Marguerite Salazar, interviewed in Alamosa Friday, said she was trying to find out from HHS personnel in Washington why the application, which had been approved, was not funded. She wants to find out, "What’s wrong with this proposal?" in order to be in a better position if a second application is submitted.

As a practical strategy, Salazar plans to submit a request to get Mancos included in Valley-Wide’s "scope of services" (which would make it legal for VWHS to provide care in Mancos), redo the budget with an eye to finding other sources quickly for startup money to get a clinic open and operating, and re-apply for federal funding.

Jerry Wheeler, a program director in the Denver office of the Bureau of Primary Health Care (the HHS branch providing the New Start/Expansion grants) didn’t close the door when asked Monday about possible approval yet this fiscal year.

"All applications go through an Objective Review Committee," which ranks the requests on the basis of a scoring system, Wheeler said. That review determined that the Mancos grant was approved for funding, but the funding available has so far not reached down to where Mancos waits on the approved list.

There is a possibility, Wheeler acknowledged, that year-end money may still be available before Sept. 30, the end of this fiscal year. If that doesn’t happen, the Mancos proposal would have to submitted anew, with the first announcement of funding not likely until March 2002.