Clinic starts move into community center; the goal is to reopen on Monday

Published 10:15 am Thursday, July 19, 2018

DALTON, Ga. — Staff at the DEO Clinic began the move into their new home in Dalton’s Mack Gaston Community Center on Wednesday.

“We are boxing up stuff and getting ready to move,” said Executive Director Tom Brown.

The clinic will be closed today as staff continue the move from 411 Central Ave. The clinic is normally closed on Friday. Brown said the clinic should reopen on Monday at 10 a.m. in the Gaston Center.

“That is our goal,” he said.

The City Council in June approved a five-year lease with the DEO Clinic and the Northwest Georgia Healthcare Partnership to operate a clinic in the Gaston Center.

The DEO Clinic, which provides free primary and preventive health care to some residents of Whitfield and Murray counties who do not have health insurance, and the Partnership made a joint proposal for the clinic space in May. They were the only organizations to respond to the city’s request for proposals. The Partnership promotes health and healthy communities in the Greater Dalton area.

The DEO Clinic will be open four days a week for treatment. On Fridays, the Partnership will have staff on site to help sign people up for health insurance and to refer those with insurance to other providers. The two entities will pay $1 a year for the lease.

Brown said the DEO Clinic hopes to expand the number of patients it serves.

“This year, we are averaging about 235 a month,” he said.

Several people using the Gaston Center recently said they would be glad to see the DEO Clinic there.

Georgia Mountains Health Services, a Morganton-based nonprofit agency, operated the Partnership Health Center in the Gaston Center for some five years. But it left in April, three months before its lease would have ended, claiming it was losing money. Its clinic was open five days a week, but CEO Steven Miracle had requested that the clinic be open fewer days. Council members said they would be agreeable to that suggestion as a temporary measure until a new provider could be secured.

“A lot of people used the (Partnership Health Center),” said Don Brown. “I don’t know what they have been doing since it closed. This will give them some place to go when they need a doctor.”

“I hope the people they (the DEO Clinic) are seeing now can follow them over here and they can pick up the people that had been going to the (Partnership Health Center),” said John Hendricks.

The lease calls for the DEO Clinic to provide quarterly reports on the number of patient visits. City Council members said that is vital to seeing what the community’s needs are.