By Tricia Pursell
The Daily Item
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SELINSGROVE — A combination community health clinic and student health center on the campus of Susquehanna University will not open until Sept. 28, but calls for appointments are already flooding in.
“We are very excited about it,” said Gloria Gerrity, vice president of pediatrics for the Geisinger Health System. “We think it will be busy.”
On Sept. 13, staff will begin moving into the new office, in the former St. Pius X Roman Catholic Church, located at the corner of University Avenue and 18th Street.
The new 16,000-square-foot clinic will bring new specialized medical services, such as pediatric urgent care, to the Selinsgrove area, when before, patients would have to travel to the Geisinger Medical Center in Danville to be seen and treated.
Additional specialty services will include dermatology, endocrinology, general pediatrics, laboratory, neurology, neurosurgery, nephrology, orthopedics including a joint program, physiatry, radiology, rehabilitation, rheumatology, spine medicine, sports medicine and physical therapy, and women’s health.
“For a student who is coming here with a chronic condition like asthma or diabetes, it’s going to be a comfort to parents to have Geisinger’s urgent care facility on our campus,” Coyne said.
Gerrity calls the university-medical center partnership a “unique model” that will have even more to offer in the future, such as medical professionals working with medical students to complete their residencies.
“We see a lot of positive synergy,” she said.
“We think a lot of tie-ins are possible,” Coyne agreed. “There’s a lot of potential.”
About a week before the doors open, SU students will be notified of the campus health center’s new location, and the increased available services to them there.
Now open 40 hours a week, the student health center will grow to 60 hours of operation. There are three full-time employees for the center. As a result of the increase in hours, there is now a full-time receptionist.
Geisinger will be staffing the clinic with 40 employees, transferring some from departments such as orthopedics and women’s health, but hiring new employees for areas such as pediatrics.
The university has invested $3 million into renovating the building, according to Mike Coyne, vice president of finance at Susquehanna.
A 15-year lease with Geisinger is expected to pay for the university’s investment.
Geisinger, whose capital investment in the new clinic is approximately $670,000. will outfit the interior/clinical portion of the building, such as bringing in exam tables and other medical supplies.
Susquehanna purchased the building from St. Pius X parish for $1.1 million. The congregation moved to a new building nearby in 2008.
The former church rectory will be renovated and used as a writer’s house for the creative writing department within the university’s English department.
Though it is a non-profit organization, the university is planning to contribute money to the borough that would equal what would be paid in taxes on the property. Details are still being worked out.
“We try to be a good citizen,” Coyne said. “We recognize that the borough is our home, and they do a lot of things for us.”
The new clinic will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday, as well as eight hours on Saturdays and six hours on Sundays.
