LAKELAND — A new health clinic opened in Lanier County Monday, helping alleviate a shortage of professional medical care in the area.

The Faith, Hope and Love Health and Wellness Center is located at the former Bethel Baptist Church at 375 West Ga. 37 just outside Lakeland, about a mile west of South Georgia Medical Center’s Lanier Campus.

Services at the clinic are provided by adult nurse practitioner Kristen Ley, a Lanier County High School graduate who got her undergraduate degree at Valdosta State University. Her husband Jeffery is the clinic’s CEO.

“We incorporated in 2013,” Jeffery said, “and got non-profit status in 2015. We’ve been working since then to get the place open.”

The Leys’ home church, Southland Baptist Church in Lakeland, bought the former Bethel church property after the latter dissolved in 2013, he said.

The former church has been remodeled into a medical clinic, although one room is being rented to an unrelated church group for Sunday meetings, Jeffery said.

The clinic can handle all routine health care needs for patients 13 and older but not emergencies, Kristen said.

“We can manage diabetes and hypertension,” she said. A volunteer nurse completed her board exams for women’s health Friday, “so we’ll be adding that soon,” Kristen said.

Dr. Tiffany Delice, who works in family medicine and psychiatry in Valdosta, is Kristen Ley’s consulting physician.

Kristen said she can issue prescriptions for most medications except for Schedule I and Schedule II high-power narcotics like methadone and oxycodone.

The U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration considers Lanier County, together with Echols, Atkinson, Berrien and Clinch counties, to be a “medically underserved area,” Jeffery said. Only one physician practices full-time in Lakeland, he said.

“We have a love for this community, which I want to serve,” she said.

The clinic has been accepted by Medicaid, Medicare and most private insurance plans, and offers a sliding-scale fee plan for uninsured patients, Kristen said.

The clinic is open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday through Friday and accepts walk-ins. The phone number is 229-232-8052.

Terry Richards is senior reporter at The Valdosta Daily Times.