Patients lining up for General Beadle clinic
Each day, from 2:30 p.m. to 5 p.m., nurse Janice Harris enrolls patients at the new school-based clinic at General Beadle Community School. She’s not ready to treat them yet – the clinic opens July 1 – but she is ready to get to know them.
The health clinic, run by Community Health Center of the Black Hills, is based at the new General Beadle school in Rapid City. It will serve students of the four schools in northern Rapid City as well as their families. It will provide primary nursing and medical care, dental care and optical and counseling services.
When the clinic is fully operating, it will have a nurse, full-time dentist and nurse practitioner. The clinic has already hired office staff.
Harris has been in the new clinic space at General Beadle for the past month, taking base-line health assessments for students and their families in order to enroll them at the clinic.
The assessments give health care providers the information they need to treat patients after the clinic opens, said Crystal Jordon, chief officer of Community Center of the Black Hills. It also helps the South Dakota Department of Health track health risks related to tobacco use. The clinic received a tobacco grant from the Department of Health to help fund the health assessments.
In the past four weeks, 30 people have enrolled at the clinic, Jordon said. She hopes more will take time in the coming months to enroll so when the clinic opens for business, paperwork will be in place.
To find out more about the clinic and the assessments, call 394-1841. Those wishing to enroll can enter the clinic through the front entrance of General Beadle.
Contact Lynn Taylor Rick at lynn.taylorrick@rapidcityjournal.com or 394-8414.