Health center gets additional space

BONNERS FERRY, Idaho – So many patients flock to Boundary Community Health Center for medical care that the federally funded clinic is bursting at the seams.

“We are tripping over each other at this point,” Andrew Bolton, center executive director, said Wednesday. “We would serve more people now, but the physical facility is too limited.”

That problem is about to change. The center will break ground today on an expansion that will add six exam rooms, triple the size of the waiting room and add offices for the medical staff. Now, seven medical workers share one office. Bolton said the plans expand the current building by about 150 percent.

A federal grant to increase the accessibility of health care in lower-income areas of the nation enabled the clinic to open in Bonners Ferry at the end of 2002. The first month the clinic operated, doctors saw 430 patients, Bolton said. Now, 1,800 patients a month seek medical care from the clinic.

“And we’re still in much the same space,” he said.

The clinic rents building space from Boundary Community Hospital. It has 10 exam rooms now that are in constant use. Bolton said the $150,000 first phase of the project will add the exam rooms and some space to the waiting room over the next three months. Expansion won’t include the clinic’s dental center.

The clinic offers medical care six days a week and dental care five days a week. It treats people with no health insurance and people with Medicaid, Medicare or private insurance.

Money for the expansion will come from the center’s operating revenues, Bolton said.

“Patients and staff have been patient about the crowding,” he said. “But we’ve gotten into situations in peak periods where doctors are waiting for an exam room to open. That’s got to change.”

A groundbreaking ceremony at the center will start at 11 a.m. today and feature GOP Rep. Butch Otter and Bonners Ferry Mayor Darrell Kirby. The ceremony is open to the public.