New 60,000 square foot health clinic will serve low-income
uninsured patients
By Serdar Tumgoren Staff Writer
Gilroy – A project to expand health services for Gilroy’s low-income and uninsured people is rising just east of U.S. Highway 101, while a smaller health building is slated to open in downtown Gilroy next week.
Workers began construction this spring on the $60-million Valley Health Clinic Gilroy, located at the intersection of Gilman Road and Camino Arroyo. Constructions crews have spent the intervening months laying the foundation of the 60,000-square-foot facility and installing underground electrical and plumbing utilities. The concrete footprint of the building will be poured in the next month and the steel frame of the building will rise in the three to six months after.
The new facility, located in Southpoint Business Park just south of the Gilroy Premium Outlets, is planned to open on schedule by the end of 2008.
The Gilroy clinic will eventually replace a smaller facility in San Martin that now serves low-income and uninsured patients.
“We’ve seen more of our clients from the Gilroy area in the last 10 years,” said Joy Alexiou, spokesperson for the Santa Clara Valley Health and Hospital System. “Hence moving the clinic farther south.”
The new clinic will offer obstetrics and gynecology, pediatrics, ophthalmology and public health services such as immunizations and nutrition programs for low-income women and children. It will also house a pharmacy and digital X-ray diagnostic equipment.
The clinic expects to serve more than 100,000 South County residents each year.
The county isn’t the only health provider expanding services in Gilroy for poor and uninsured people. On Monday, Gardner South County Health Clinic plans to open a new two-story building in downtown Gilroy that offers family planning, oral care and internal medicine services. About 60 percent of its patients lack insurance, and Gardner hopes the new facility will allow it to serve 10,000 clients a year.
The Valley Health Clinic Gilroy is part of a broader county plan to bolster health services. Officials also plan to build a new health clinic in Milpitas.
Serdar Tumgoren, Senior Staff Writer, covers City Hall for The Dispatch. Reach him at 847-7109 or st*******@************ch.com.
