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Groups Bring Health Clinic to Fayette Community

Posted on: Saturday, 1 January 2005, 00:00 CST

susanwilliams@wvgazette.com

People with the New River Health Association are experimenting with new ways to bring health care to a small Fayette County community with few resources.

But the new ways of delivering health care may also include some old-fashioned socializing and neighborliness.

Staff with the New River Health Association and the Southern Appalachian Labor School are working together to bring primary health-care services to the community of Beards Fork. The Labor School has a community center in a former school building that provides a variety of services to the area. Last month, they also started offering some health care through what they are calling the Beards Fork Clinic and Health Project.

"We started with a limited focus," Dave Sotak, executive director of the New River Health Association in Scarbro, said Tuesday. They began by offering the health care to SALS employees and members of YouthBuild, a group of young people who help build or repair homes in the area.

They are in the process of expanding the health care to include family members of those people, and then they will offer the services to the larger community.

Dr. Dan Doyle has been providing the health care to individual patients, but they are also offering group visits. Sotak said people can speak to the doctor in private, but in the group settings they may learn about a treatment option or some way of improving their health by listening to other people in the group.

For example, he said, they may hear someone in the group talk about a procedure that helped them with their diabetes treatment.

"Then they see each other in the community and ask, 'How are you doing?' They also can form exercise or walking groups together," he said. They can also work together to change behavior like stopping smoking and eating less.

"You don't keep someone in a program unless there is a benefit," he said.

They are also operating the Beards Fork clinic with a completely computerized system. Sotak said at New River they might see patients at one of several sites. If a health-care provider must rely on a paper file that includes patient history and medications, the provider can only access those charts from wherever the papers are filed. But with the computerized system, a provider can access those files wherever they are operating a clinic.

People who live in the Beards Fork area must travel to Oak Hill or Montgomery to see a doctor. Sotak said many of the patients in Beards Fork have difficulty getting transportation, so offering them services in their community helps.

Brenda Winter is the on-site coordinator for the project. She sets up appointments, and Marie Settle is the Certified Nursing Assistant for the clinic. Winter said they hope to do more in the future with education their patients with ways to prevent health problems such as education session on diabetes and smoking cessation.

"Once we get the word out," Winter said, "I look for more people to turn to the clinic."

They have started with providing health-care services one half day a month.

Montgomery General Hospital and New River Health Association provided equipment for a private examination room.

SALS Director John David said the health clinic is an outgrowth of increased collaboration between his group and New River.

He said the efforts help people who are underserved, uninsured or who are living at risk of health problems.

Sotak said, "We have a lot of hope for the Beards Fork site."

To contact staff writer Susan Williams, use e-mail or call 348- 5112.

Source: Charleston Gazette, The

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