ODESSA, Texas — Medical Center Health System held a grand opening Thursday for the brand new MCH Community Diabetes Clinic in Odessa.
MCH hopes this clinic will make a difference in the community when it comes to addressing diabetes.
The clinic was made possible by the Odessa City Council, who voted unanimously on Jan. 9 to award Medical Center Health System $500,000 of funds they received from the American Rescue Plan Act.
“That money is going to go directly towards patient care [and] Medical Center Hospital is going to take care of everything else; the electricity, the water, the medicine, the staff," Russell Tippin, president and CEO of Medical Center Health System, said. "This facility will be staffed by Medical Center for like the nurses and the front office folks. Texas Tech, we’re going to partner with Texas Tech with their residents; to put their student doctors and student nurse practitioners in here to get them trained on diabetes early.”
When opened, the clinic will have varied hours and days to accommodate different patients’ schedules and is meant to serve people of all kinds in the community at no cost to them.
“What we found important in this is there’s a lot of people out there who have jobs, but they don’t have any health insurance," Tippin said. "We know that the cost of everything is going up. Our responsibility is to address the entire community, not just those with insurance, not just those with a small amount of it. We want to talk to everybody; we want to treat everybody. This clinic is going to address that group of people that may not have any other place to go except for here.”
The clinic will offer free diabetes screenings, appropriate treatments and medication, along with necessary tests and exams for all diabetes patients.
“I’m very happy for our community, I’m very happy that these entities were able to come together to get something done and I think it says a lot for how we work together as a group of officials and group of community leaders," Tippin said. "I think it’s a big deal, especially for the patients.”
MCH said they hope to fully open the clinic within the next three weeks.