Willow satellite clinic opens doors

WILLOW -- No longer will the residents of Willow make the long drive to utilize the Sunshine Community Health Center, or wait until SCHC's clinic-on-wheels to receive health care. The community celebrated the opening of Sunshine's permanent satellite clinic, located on the corner of the Parks Highway and Nancy Lake Parkway, last Friday, with hopes that the opening will make it even easier for the people of Willow to get quality health care at a reasonable cost.

"We've always served the whole upper Susitna Valley," said SCHC executive director Susan Mason-Bouterse. "But they've always had to drive here [to Sunshine]."

Sunshine's clinic first opened in 1986 through funding through the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration's Alaska Initiative grant program. It was able to receive federal funding and become a community health center in 2000. The program, which is part of a national program President George W. Bush has supported to expand the number of health care clinics in communities throughout the nation, allows clinics to use a sliding scale in health-care costs, providing health care that may otherwise not be affordable to Upper Susitna Valley residents.

"We help provide health care to people who can't afford it," Mason-Bouterse said. "But not just anyone can open a CHC anywhere, we had to be approved as a medically underserved area."

The Upper Susitna Valley also had to be a health care professional shortage area to be considered for the grant. According to the Alaska Primary Care Association, which oversees the different CHCs, there are 60 CHC sites in Alaska under 21 different organizations similar to Sunshine.

While the new clinic in Willow will employ some local Willow residents, the two primary caregivers, a nurse practitioner and a physician's assistant, both live in Talkeetna. The employees will work half their week at Willow, then spend the rest of their week in Sunshine, allowing the two clinics to be more integrated, Mason-Bouterse said.

"Willow is still a part of our CHC," she said. "It's a satellite clinic, we want to keep consistency in our outlaying areas."

The clinic-on-wheels will continue to go to Trapper Creek as long as the weather holds, Mason-Bouterse said. While no definite plans are in place, Mason-Bouterse said she hopes they will someday be able to build a permanent clinic in Trapper Creek.

"Maybe not immediately, but our long-term plan is to have something there as well," she said.

Sunshine will have a new building for its clinic by January, said Mason-Bouterse. Plans for the old clinic building have not been finalized, she said.