MENDOTA, Va. – After a Monday night community meeting, what will become of the Mendota Medical Center is a $35,600 question.
That’s the amount of money, less the cost of rent on the building, that the clinic is projected to lose this year – and the reason Stone Mountain Health Services plans to shut it down, said CEO Malcolm Perdue.
“I know beyond a shadow of a doubt we can come up with it,” said Louetta Canter, president of the Mendota Community Association, which owns the clinic building. “But the question is do we want to, or do we want to focus on getting another provider in here to keep the clinic open?”
Canter said she’s got a good prospect in another health care organization similar to Stone Mountain that may take over operation of the clinic; she’s hopeful it can stay open continuously even if there’s a change in management – and its four staff members will be able to keep their jobs.
Another possibility to keep the clinic open would be for a private practice to locate in the building – or even for the association to pay a nurse practitioner directly. She said every possibility is being considered.
“Our goal is we need to go forward, just like when Wellmont left, we continued to go forward, and we’ve just got to keep going,” she said.
Perdue said he’s open to suggestions – and, if the community comes up with the money to make the clinic break even, that will be enough to keep it open. But, he said, the clinic is losing money because it doesn’t see enough patients to make it financially viable. If nothing changes, he said, it will continue to lose money.
Three years ago, former clinic operator Wellmont Health System pulled out of Mendota for the same reason.
“Communities can take action to build consensus and open clinics and stuff like that, but what happens every day is everybody make a decision about where they go to the doctor,” Perdue said. “So as a community, you guys are very strong, very active, but as individuals, your neighbors have to use the clinic, too.”
He said this is the first clinic that Stone Mountain has had to close because of money.
Brenda Waterson, a Mendota-area resident, said she thinks the community can increase the patient base to make the clinic viable, by simply letting people know what services are available.
Perdue said the sliding fee scale brings the cost of an office visit down as low as $10 for some low-income patients.
The building is owned by the community association, which built it more than a decade ago, largely with grant funds, in hopes of keeping a medical provider in the community.
Canter, who noted that the building is paid for, said the community association will work hard to keep the clinic’s doors open.
dmccown@bristolnews.com | (276) 791-0701
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