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Oct 13, 2001 By Tom Vaughan The health clinic in Mancos moved two steps closer to reopening this week. The clinic is one of 19 projects slated for federal funding, according to Marguerite Salazar, CEO of Valley-Wide Health Services, Inc. Late Tuesday evening, in an e-mail message to Mancos resident Mike Guillette and the Mancos Times, Salazar reported, "Out of over 36 applications (for federal funding) that were on hold from last March, we are one of 19 slated for funding." Valley-Wide is a nonprofit health-services organization based in Alamosa. Valley-Wide had applied to the federal Bureau of Primary Health Care for a $500,000 New Start/Expansion grant to reopen and operate the Mancos clinic, closed since Memorial Day 2000. In another important development, the Montezuma County Hospital District voted unanimously Wednesday to purchase the clinic property from Michael and Alice O’Trainor. The MCHD has had a short-term lease-purchase agreement with the O’Trainors to keep the options open while funding to remodel and reopen the clinic was being arranged. The decision to purchase had three contingencies:
Strietzel has earlier indicated an interest in relocating to the clinic building, which would give the MCHD a paying tenant. The income would nearly offset the loan repayments, leaving the district free to use its available cash for other health needs, MCHD Board President Randy Smith said Thursday. A dual uncertainty in the deal right now is that both the BPHC grant and the USDA loan are held up in the continuing resolution on which the federal government is currently operating. Until Congress passes the appropriation bills for the respective departments, the agencies can only operate at prior-year levels and do not have fixed budgets to work with. In the meantime, according to Guillette, the Caring for Colorado Foundation’s director, Chris Wiant, has said the BPHC letter Salazar quoted in her e-mail message was sufficient for him to release the $150,000 granted to remodel the clinic building. County Administrator Tom Weaver told the Mancos Times he would be meeting with the Department of Local Affairs next Wednesday to argue for a $70,000 request that would fund the drawings and specifications necessary to guide the rehabilitation of the building. Guillette said Friday that preliminary drawings done by Charles Hubbard, who designed the new emergency room at Southwest Memorial Hospital and the new clinic in Dove Creek, would reorient the existing facility. The carport on the south would be closed in, creating three more examining rooms, and an entry/reception room would be extended eastward from the present carport. The reception area would serve both the dental clinic and the medical clinic. Both Weaver and Guillette credited the efforts of many people in bringing the process this far. Weaver especially thanked Guillette for his work on planning and grant applications and the O’Trainors for their patience and community spirit in holding the building till funding arrangements could be made. Guillette said, "This was an effort by a lot of people from different agencies and citizens to make it happen." According to Weaver, up to $35,000 may still need to be raised by the community to get the clinic up to speed, but that should not hinder the reopening when the federal funding is approved. A community group, perhaps the Mancos Valley Chamber of Commerce, would have to head that drive. Salazar said there is a requirement in the BPHC grant program that the clinic has to be open 90 days after the money is awarded. If the award is announced by Nov. 1, Mancos would have a clinic operated by VWHS by Feb. 1, 2002. Before the clinic reopens, a local, nonprofit group will have to be formally created to provide oversight for the clinic. A representative of that group would sit on the VWHS board of directors. |
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