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Please note: A new site has been selected (August 2010)
"Another Site Has Been Selected. New Health Center Finds Home Near Doctors Medical Center San Pablo.The location of our new West County health center was announced in July along with proposed plans and a design. Leaders said the 18-acre site along San Pablo Avenue between Vale Road and Church Lane is ideal because of its proximity to Doctors Medical Center San Pablo. Initially, the health center was to be located on the Doctors Medical Center San Pablo campus, but space was an issue. Construction for the clinic, which will replace our aging Richmond Health Center, could be finished by spring 2012. The project was made possible in December with $12 million in federal stimulus funds."
Some months ago I told you about the
efforts over the last decade to replace the
deteriorating Richmond Health Center with a
new building to better serve West Contra Costa County.
I'm Dr. William Walker, Director of
Contra Costa Health Services and the
County Health Officer. I want to give you an
update on how we are working to meet the
health needs of West County residents.
The Richmond Health Center is
nearly 50 years old and badly needs to be replaced.
It's the only one of our eight health centers that
hasn't been replaced, and we are determined this
will happen so our patients can
get quality care in a quality facility.
The City of Richmond wants the
property where the Health Center is located
on 38th and Bissell Avenue to use for
commercial development.
We understand that.
We know that the Health Center stands in
a place that could be generating much needed
revenue for city services.
A number of locations in Richmond were
identified as potential new sites for the Health Center.
For various reasons, none of those sites is
available at this time or in the near future.
In order to help Richmond officials
move forward with their
development plans--and to help us establish a
new health center--we must move forward and so
we have chosen a potential site.
We are hoping to build a state-of-the art
Health Center on the campus of
Doctors Medical Center in San Pablo--just a few miles from the current site of
the Richmond Health Center.
We think this plan will benefit the
community in a number of ways.
We have worked hard for the
last year to save Doctors Medical center and
make it a financially viable medical center to
serve West County residents.
Locating the Health Center on the
Doctors campus will make it possible to
share services like x-ray and laboratory testing.
That will bring revenue to Doctors and
improve patient access to those services.
The current Health Center provides
primary and specialty care, well baby visits,
immunizations and other critical services.
The Center recently was praised for
providing high quality care despite its deteriorating state.
We hope this new plan will allow those
excellent services to continue--in a much improved building.
The new Health Center will be reachable by
public transportation for patients from
all communities in West Contra Costa.
We think relocating the Health Center to
this new site is the best solution for
West County residents and gives the
community a Health Center it deserves
Thanks for listening.
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