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Straddling the Palo Alto and Mountain View border, a Santa Clara Valley Health Center clinic is on track to open in the late summer, bringing much-needed primary and preventative health care services closer to home for North County residents.
Currently, the county does not run any comprehensive health care clinics in the North County, which includes Palo Alto, Mountain View, Los Altos and Los Altos Hills. Instead, patients have had to travel south to Valley Health Center Sunnyvale, which is at capacity, serving 6,000 people yearly with one to two month wait times to see a doctor, according to Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian.
“People need health care in the district,” Simitian said on Jan. 24 during a tour of the Valley Health Center North County facility, which is still under construction at 4151 Middlefield Road.
In December, the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved $18.5 million to remodel the two-story, 24,500 square foot building and to purchase essential equipment and furnishings for the facility, according to a county press release.
The clinic will provide a wide range of medical services that includes primary care, mental health, obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics and urgent care, as well as rotating specialty care services. It also will offer patients the convenience of an on-site pharmacy, labs for blood work and imaging services, the press release said.
A tour of the facility showed its layout, with spaces largely dedicated to serving patients in exam and treatment rooms. Once the clinic is up and running, it will accommodate about 100 patients a day, relieving intake pressure from the Sunnyvale clinic too, Simitian said.
When asked about how Santa Clara Valley Healthcare plans to staff the facility, representatives said they likely would bring in medical professionals from other medical centers. Simitian also noted that the county has had challenges with staffing in the past, and that most workers cannot afford to live in the North County and prefer not to commute long distances. Workforce housing was another priority area, he said.
The timeline for the opening of clinic has largely stayed on schedule, and there have been no unexpected construction delays, according to Jeffrey Draper, director of the county’s facilities and fleet department. “It’s an existing building so we had a leg up,” he said.
The facility, which originally was scheduled to be finished in July or August, was delayed about a month because of permit issues and is now anticipated to be completed by August or September, according to a Board of Supervisors report on Jan. 17.
Gov reasonableness? “It was an existing building”, so they “had a leg up.” Good. Several decades ago a state oversight commission, the Little Hoover, found the same facilities truth held for public school facilities = it is several times cheaper to renovate a reasonably maintained public facility, than to build new. Especially cheaper than ‘demolish and build new.’
I hope this stays on budget and on track. The community could use this, not just wealthy live in No. County. Simitian/ not the No County guy / the Yes County can do it guy!