By Carmen Ensinger
White Hall City Council had two special visitors to their November council meeting – Boyd Hospital Administrator Stace Holland and Director of Marketing and Public Relations Blake Schaefer who wanted to talk about the upcoming clinic to be built in White Hall.
“We noticed that White Hall is our next biggest market and with us planning to build a clinic up here, we thought we would come here tonight to find out what the people of White Hall need,” Holland said. “We bought the property several months ago and plan to start construction sometime in 2025.”
Boyd Hospital purchased the building and lot that was formerly John’s Pizza and tore the building down.
“We want to work with you to help you define and design how that building will better serve the community,” Holland said.
One thing Holland has in mind will thrill all of the North Greene residents.
“My vision is to have an EMS base here also,” he said. “The first tornado warning we had I asked why are all our ambulances at the hospital. We could have an EMS base at the clinic here when it is built. It would decrease response times.”
Since the clinic has already been designed, Alderman Norman Coad asked if there was enough room for an EMS base in the building.
“There is an architect that looked at it and he believes there is,” Holland said. “If not, I think we can build something that can be attached to the clinic.”
What’s more, the EMS staff can be utilized in the clinic when they are not on an EMS run.
“Also, I think we can take EMS people, who are very well trained, and we could probably utilize their services doing patient care in the clinic,” Holland said. “So, it could be more of an urgent care rather than just a physician’s clinic.”
As for funding for the project, Holland said it is a very well known fact that the hospital doesn’t have any money so they are depending on grants to get the job done.
“We are trying to figure out where we are going to come up with the money and going after some grants,” Holland said. “I realized that the hospital had never gone after that Employee Retention Credit for COVID money so I submitted for that and we were awarded $1.5 million for that. I don’t know when that is going to come because the state is really backlogged.”
Holland said he would welcome coming back or working with a committee put together by the council.
“This needs to be a good cooperative partnership between the hospital and the city,” Holland said. “We really want to bring to the people of White Hall the best services and the services they need.”