DANVILLE — The Knox County Health Department is opening a full-time health center in Danville on Sept. 9. The health center, which is located at 16 E. Main Street near where the old Longsinger’s Pharmacy used to be, was running part-time as needed during spring.
This plan has been over a year in the making. Lane Belangia, CEO of the Knox Community Health Center, told the News that Bob Dile, mayor of Danville, asked last summer if the health department was interested in buying the Longersinger’s building. The department, at the time, didn’t have the means to purchase it.
Conway was interested, seeing the potential to bring services to the Danville area, Belangia said. The health department then started leasing the office space from Conway to start offering services.
The health clinic will be a Federally Qualified Health Center. This means that, like the clinic in Mount Vernon, it will offer a sliding fee scale and can’t turn away patients based on their ability to pay or their insurance status.
The clinic will start with just medical care on its opening date but Belangia said he hopes to have a dental clinic and counseling services for mental, behavioral, and addiction opened by the end of the year.
“The placement of the clinic may seem a bit odd,” Belangia said about locating the new clinic in Danville. But when looking over the data about the surrounding area, it becomes clear that the center will be utilized.
“The area around Danville, the four zip codes that include Brinkhaven and Greer, are the worse to live in the surrounding area” regarding access to healthcare, Belangia said.
Multiple things are working against those who live in that area. Belangia points out that income, whether or not a person has insurance, and access to transportation can work against someone when they need to see a doctor.
The government, he explains, looks at the population size and divides that by the number of providers in the area. They then score the county on a scale of 1 to 25, 25 being the worse, on how accessible it is to see a doctor. Knox County currently scores a 25 for dental, 19 for medical, and 21 for counseling services.
Anything above 17 is looked upon as a poor area to live in if the population wants to seek preventative measures to stay healthy, Belangia continued to explain. That mean those in the area are less likely to see a doctor in a timely manner resulting in more trips to the emergency room and urgent care centers.
“All of this could be prevented if preventative measures were provided, the kind of measures primary care providers give you in their offices,” Belangia said.
“We offer care to everyone and anyone,” Belangia said. He encourages everyone who needs care, regardless of insurance status, to make use of the full-service health center in Danville.
Jennie McClain will be the nurse practitioner at the center. The center will be opened Monday through Friday 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. To make an appointment, call (740)-399-8008.
A patient appreciation day will be held on Oct. 5 at the Danville Memorial Park from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
