Jeff Myers, left, Hamilton Health Care System president and CEO, and Tom Brown, the DEO Clinic's executive director, reveal the clinic's sign from its previous location on Tuesday at the clinic's new location in the Mack Gaston Community Center in Dalton.

DALTON, Ga. — A small acorn has grown into a “pretty good-sized oak tree,” said DEO Clinic Executive Director Tom Brown on Tuesday.

DEO Clinic staff, volunteers, supporters and members of the public gathered to celebrate the dedication of the clinic’s new location inside Dalton’s Mack Gaston Community Center.

“It (the clinic) was started by a small group of people who shared a moral outrage that people in a community like this lacked basic health care simply because they didn’t have the money to pay for it,” said Dr. Rod Rodriguez, the clinic’s medical director.

The clinic began operations more than 10 years ago in donated space underneath the Waugh Street bridge as a medical outreach effort of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church to provide free health care to low-income people without health insurance. Rodriguez and Henry Harrison, who was the assistant to the church rector, spearheaded the project.

“It was really just a band-aid station,” said Rodriguez. “We provided basic medical care, some medicines. It grew not because of anything I did but because we had a steady supply of dedicated, passionate volunteers.”

Brown said the clinic, which has already been seeing patients, currently has about 64 volunteers.

For the past five years, the DEO Clinic had been located on Central Avenue on the south side of the city. But in May, the clinic and the Northwest Georgia Healthcare Partnership made a proposal to occupy space in the Gaston Center after Georgia Mountains Health Services — a Morganton-based nonprofit agency that had operated the Partnership Health Center there for some five years — left the Gaston Center in April, three months before its lease would have ended, claiming it was losing money at the site.

The City Council in June approved a five-year, $1-a-year lease with the DEO Clinic and the Northwest Georgia Healthcare Partnership.

“This is a quantum leap over where we had been,” said Rodriguez. “It’s about twice as large, and it’s more centrally located.” The new location is approximately 2,130 square feet.

Rodriguez and Brown say they believe the larger facility will allow the clinic to serve more patients. The clinic has been averaging about 235 patient visits a month this year.

DEO Clinic Board Chairman David Blaylock has been involved with the clinic from the beginning and says he’s proud to see how it has grown.

“Everybody deserves quality health care,” he said. “The community has always been so supportive. We are grateful for that, and this new facility is the culmination of the hard work of our volunteers and staff and the support of the community.”

Hamilton Health Care System President and CEO Jeff Myers lauded the work of the clinic and its volunteers.

“Their mission is taking care of people,” he said.

The DEO Clinic is open Monday through Thursday for treatment with lunch from noon to 1:30 p.m. The hours are Monday from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Tuesday and Wednesday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and Thursday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. 

On Fridays, the Partnership has staff on site to help sign people up for health insurance and to refer those with insurance to other providers.