Shenandoah South Wellness Center renovated to offer more services

The Shenandoah Community Health Clinic held a ribbon cutting on Tuesday, October 9th at the newly renovated Shenandoah South Wellness Center at Ashby Lee Elementary in Quicksburg.

Last year, the clinic had a pilot program, but about $100,000 in construction was needed for the old classroom.

The pilot program at Ashby Lee opened in 2017, but the lack of dividing walls meant there wasn't enough privacy.

Thanks to a $50,000 grant from Holtzman Oil and Holtzman Propane, and another $50,000 from community fundraising, the clinic can now offer more services.

"We now have two dental operatory/exam room spaces, which is great, and a bathroom, which is wonderful, because we can do more laboratory testing," said Executive Director Pam Murphy.

The clinic works to make healthcare as affordable as possible.

"A counseling visit might be $2 each, a medical visit might be $5," said Murphy.

The clinic focuses on those who may have trouble accessing health care because of a lack of transportation.

"We had patients that had difficulty getting to the middle of Shenandoah County because they lived on one of the far ends," said Murphy. "There's a lot of children that never had a dental appointment until we saw them."

Another barrier for parents is having enough time off to take children to the doctor or dentist.

"The advantage of being here during the school day when the children are here is that school administrators know if a child's feeling sick and maybe this is strep throat, and they don't have a doctor on staff that does that. If we're here, we can look and tell the parents, 'Yes, it's strep throat and here's a prescription.'"

Donations from Holtzman Oil and the community made the renovations possible.

"We're just so excited that the whole community rose to the occasion to help make this work for us," said Murphy.

Multiple representatives from sponsors attended the ribbon cutting.

One major expansion that the Shenandoah Community Health Clinic is working on is hiring counselors to move around schools in Shenandoah County.

Another future goal is to be able accept other types of Medicaid as the program expands in Virginia next year.