Sunshine Community Health Clinic takes services on the road

SUNSHINE-- The Sunshine Community Health Clinic is going mobile.

The clinic recently purchased a motor home, which it plans to convert into a mobile health clinic to serve the Willow and Trapper Creek areas. The mobile clinic should hit the road by February, said the clinic's executive director, Susan Mason-Bouterse.

"We're trying to provide the basic primary-care clinic so that the person can get the same services they would get if they came to our hub clinic," Mason-Bouterse said.

The secondhand 34-foot Winnebago motor home previously served in Alaska's Women, Infants and Children's (WIC) program. Mason-Bouterse said some minor modifications were in order -- there will be a small reception area, a private examination room, and a small bathroom on board.

Mason-Bouterse didn't know exactly where the new clinic would park while serving Willow or Trapper Creek, but that clinic managers plan to work with those communities to find a suitable location.

"We will be exploring those options with the community," Mason-Bouterse said. She also said she is planning to attend a Willow community council meeting to get feedback. Sunshine clinic also plans to increase community involvement up and down the Parks Highway from the clinic's home.

"We have board members that are from those communities, but we need to increase their representation," she said.

Mason-Bouterse also said that Sunshine Clinic will be shopping in the future for real estate for permanent satellite clinics in Willow and Trapper Creek.

The RV and its accompanying equipment and staff budget will be paid for with a small part of $6.3 million funneled to Alaska by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). The funding nearly doubles the amount received by Alaska community health providers last year, and, according to a recent press release, is the result of year-long discussions between U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, and HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson.

Sunshine clinic received two grants for funding programs, Mason-Bouterse said -- $650,000 this year and $500,000 next year. Mason-Bouterse also said the program funding is separate from the clinic's current capital improvement drive.

"We can't do bricks and mortar with it," she said, "It's dedicated to operating programs."

Part of the money will go toward hiring Sunshine's first full-time staff physician, who will become the nonprofit's medical director, according to Mason-Bouterse.

To qualify for the funding the clinic had to show the feds it was a nonprofit, and governed by a community board.

"We are governed by a board of directors, and 50 percent of our board members have to be consumers. It's a great model because the people who are governing us are also the ones that are using our services," she said.

Stevens, in a press release, called the statewide grants "an important first step to ensure that all Alaskans have access to basic health care." He also said Thompson would visit Alaska next summer to check on the status of the state's rural health care.