Tiny Mount Morris clinic meeting a critical need
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Newly married and newly arrived on a farm in southern Greene County a dozen years ago, West Virginia native and nurse practitioner Mona Counts was startled to find sick people lining up in her driveway.
"They were begging for care," she said, and they'd heard about her through a rural grapevine that had pegged her as "the lady doctor."
In fact, her doctorate was a Ph.D. and she'd been running the nurse practitioner program she'd set up at West Virginia University. But she recognized the need.
In 1994, Ms. Counts opened a tiny clinic in two rented rooms of a building on Route 19, along the banks of Dunkard Creek. Over the years, the Primary Care Center of Mount Morris acquired more than 5,000 patients who favored its collaborative approach to health care and its willingness to treat anyone with or without appointments or insurance.
The center maintains relationships with physicians and refers patients to specialists. But most care is provided by nurse practitioners and a social worker who know patients' names, children and life stories and swap hugs or good-natured joshing before getting down to medical business.
With files jammed to the office ceiling and its chief executive officer's desk crammed under attic eaves, the center had no room left to expand. Last month, it closed on a tract of land near the Mount Morris exit of Interstate 79 for a new facility.
The center will be named after Greene County businessman John Howard, who sold the land for about $100,000 -- about half what he paid for it, Ms. Counts said. About $250,000 in state grants have been obtained toward the $1.1 million construction cost, but the center must raise the rest.
In addition to seeking additional grants, the center plans to sell commemorative bricks and naming rights to conference rooms and hold fund-raisers, Chief Executive Officer Lori Blackwell said.
"We want to serve everyone from minus 9 months to age 103," said Ms. Counts, 64, a blunt, funny woman who also is a professor at Penn State and president of the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners. "We want to be a place where it's valued and encouraged for people to participate in actively maintaining their health."
The new building will provide more space for examination and treatment, mental health and dental care and prevention programs. It also will enable specialists to provide care there a few days each month.
But despite its plan for modern, spacious accommodations, the center will remain more cozy than clinical.
"I've joked that we want a potbellied stove in the lobby of the new building," Ms. Counts said.
First Published September 25, 2006 12:00 am
