Clinic nearing completion

POLSON - Nearly 22,000 square feet of elbow room is awaiting the staff at the Tribal Health and Human Service Polson Community Clinic when they move across the alley to the almost ready, state-of-the-art new building.

The 24,000 square foot facility will replace the old 1,600 square foot building, which has housed the clinic since the 1970s. The staff will grow from about a dozen to 31 at the new site, and services will expand to meet needs Tribal HHS Director Kevin Howlett said had long outgrown the old building.

"There's absolutely no privacy," Howlett said of the old building. "No room for people, no room for equipment, no room for anything."

Turning the tight corners inside that building is nothing like breezing up the stairs of the new locations' three floors. Patients will enter waiting room that is as big as the existing clinic and be greeted with a wall of windows where the sun pours in.

Staff will begin making the move into the building on April 8. An official grand opening will be held in June, Howlett said.

It was nearly two years ago that Howlett told his staff, "what we've got is just not getting it done, I'm going to get you a better building."

Last week, he showed off a building equipped like a digital X-ray machine that is already installed in the first floor medical clinic. All routine X-rays can be performed there. Also on the first floor will be a expanded pharmacy.

The second floor will hold a dental suite with twice the number of chairs, three of which look out across the Lake County Courthouse lawn and onto the Mission Mountains. A separate pediatric suite is also begin set up.

The other side of the second floor will hold an optometry unit, where children can get at-cost glasses.

A conference room that can hold 150 people is the centerpiece of the third floor. The room has $150,000 worth of IT equipment and may eventually be used as community meeting place.

The physical therapy division and community health program offices will also be located on the third floor.

"It's been a long time coming," Howlett said. "The building in a statement in itself. But the true test is the quality of care. When we can marry those two, that's when tribal people will get good health care."

The building is paid for in funds collected through Tribal HHS services, and $160,000 Indian Health Service allocation for equipment. More than $1 million in equipment and $1 million in staff salaries will be included when the clinic is up and running.

Howlett said applications for most new positions have been steadily flowing in.

Staff transitioning from the old building are gearing up for the move.

"We've been in this small facility for so long. . . The new facility will make it much more pleasant to deliver and receive care," Dr. Dave Sievert said.

A dentist for 20 years at the Polson clinic, Sievert's current office is shared with the entire dental staff. The new, second floor accommodations have plenty of individual offices and double the suites to serve patients. He's already been in the building to scope out the equipment and space.

"It's going to be fantastic," Sievert said.