The Rosa Health Center in Georgetown breaks ground on its $2 million expansion.
The center is a family practice that currently runs out of a repurposed ranch house with two proper exam rooms. Family physician Rama Peri says it’s a tight squeeze for staff and patients.
The expansion – made possible by multiple partners – will add six more exam rooms and quadruple the amount of patients that can be seen annually.
Peri opened the clinic in Georgetown 10 years ago to serve minority, uninsured and under-insured populations.
Keila Menendez, one of the center’s medical assistants, said communities suffer when their residents are unhealthy physically, mentally or socially. She said the Rosa Health Center acts as a support in the Georgetown community.
“Having more exam rooms will help us be able to grow the intake of patients during the day and have everybody have their own private area in which we can talk to the patient with more time, because a lot of the consults are cut in time,” Menendez said.
The new facility will also have a conference room, staff offices and an education space.
“Our goal is to help people prevent health conditions, to help people get diagnosed earlier, put the ER out of work, put the specialists out of work,” Peri said. “Okay, that's the goal of a primary care physician.”
The education space will host information sessions for the community on health issues like diabetes and the importance of preventive care like pap smears and colonoscopies.
“There's so much that people are unaware that we want to be able to educate them so that they understand why these things are important,” Peri said.
Peri expects construction on the facility to take about a year.
