Central Health to open family clinic in Del Valle

Central Health, through a partnership with the University of Texas’ School of Nurs- ing and Travis County Emergency Services District 11, will open a clinic in Del Valle by the end of 2018.

Central Health, Travis County’s health care district, will likely repurpose a 5,000-square-foot building next to the ESD 11 fire station at 9019 Elroy Road for the clinic, officials said. It will offer primary care, behavioral health and dental care.

“Our board really made this a priority and mandate for Central Health because they recognize the lack of services in southeast Travis County,” said Larry Wallace, Central Health’s enterprise chief administrative officer. “So we wanted to have a significant response to these needs.”

Wallace said Thursday the agency is still working out the details of a lease as well as the possibility of building an addition. Wallace said he hopes to have a proposal in front of the board of manag- ers in the next three months.

The UT Nursing School will provide primary care services, and Wallace said the agency is working on secur- ing behavioral and dental care partners. He said they hope to one day add other services, such as a pharmacy.

Eastern Travis County residents have for years decried the lack of health centers in the area after a CommUnityCare clinic in Del Valle abruptly closed in mid-2016. The nearest clinic for adults is about 10 miles away.

A group of those residents announced they were suing Central Health last summer, alleging the agency is misspending tax dollars that should be going toward its mission of providing health care for low-income residents.

The opening of the clinic is part of Central Health’s latest initiative to increase services to the area. The first project kicked off last summer when officials announced a partnership with Travis County to share its Employee Healthcare Clinic site on FM 973 for two days a week.

The nearby Children’s Well- ness Clinic near Del Valle Elementary School provides health care to low-income residents but treats patients only up to age 21. The new clinic will serve children and adults.

“You can imagine how dif- ficult it is when sick parents and grandparents come to our clinic with sick children, but we’re limited on what we can do for the adults,” said Alexa Stuifbergen, dean of the nurs- ing school, in a news release. “Now we can offer a medical home for the entire family.”

The children’s clinic, which is about 15,000 square feet and contains four patient rooms, treats about 5,000 patients a year, said Stepha- nie Morgan, director of practice innovation at the nurs- ing school. Morgan said the new clinic will have eight rooms, allowing for double the amount of patients.

Del Valle resident Richard Franklin, who has been a vocal critic of Central Health and is a plaintiff in the suit against the agency, said that while he applauds the agency, a year is a long time to wait.

“The faster we can get that, the more I’m going to applaud it,” Franklin said. “It’s not enough, but at least it’s a relief.”

Franklin added that the clinic is only a “scraping of the surface. “The area still lacks adequate transporta- tion to get to the clinic and pharmacies to get prescrip- tions filled, he said.

ESD 11 Fire Chief Ken Bailey said 80 percent of what the Fire Department handles is medical care, and being a part of the clinic will help smooth out the delivery of care to those patients. One such way is redirecting patients who might be seeking out emer- gency care when what they really need is regular primary care, he said.

“We operate in a silo: We only deal with emergent inci- dents,” Bailey said. “We look at it and we say ... ‘Can we not team up and have some com- bination of efforts towards prevention?’” 16 passage of the paid sick leave mandate, with Council Members Ora Houston and Ellen Troxclair opposed.

As with last month’s paid sick leave ordinance, the quick pace of this resolution’s passage irked those against it. But its sponsor, Council Member Greg Casar, told the council that this vote should have happened a long time ago.

“I don’t think we are acting too quickly,” Casar said. “I think we are acting too late. I think all of our staff should have had sick time long before anyone on this dais was elected.”

The city of Austin already provides paid sick days to its full-time employees.

Starting this fall, city temporary workers and most private sector workers will earn one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked, for up to 64 hours, or eight eight-hour work days, of paid leave. Small businesses with 15 or fewer employees have a lower cap of up to 48 hours, or six eight-hour work days, of paid leave.

The council’s vote last month put in place the most progressive local labor policy in Texas and the Amer- ican South.

Its passage drew attention from U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders and has led many to speculate whether it could lead to similar policies being enacted locally in other red states.

Meanwhile, some Repub- lican state lawmakers have already vowed to file bills next legislative session to overturn the ordinance, much as the Legislature passed a law last year trump- ing Austin’s ride-hailing ordi- nance.

The City Council budgeted $243,200 to begin providing paid sick leave to temporary employees for this fiscal year but never spent that money. Thursday’s resolution will put that money toward public outreach and education efforts for busi- nesses on the new paid sick leave ordinance.

City staff have estimated that implementing the paid s ic k l e ave m a ndate will cost roughly $350,000 to $400,000, including hiring staff to coordinate outreach and respond to questions.

Houston and Troxclair both said they could not support the resolution without more information. Among other things, there was no solid estimate on how much the paid sick leave for temporary employees would cost the city.

“There are too many things that are not finished yet,” Houston said.

“There are too many unk n owns, a nd I can’t endorse something that I have no idea about what the outcomes are going to be.”

Council Member Ann Kitchen said she recognized the decision would have a fiscal impact, but said that, as a policy, it boiled down to taking care of the city’s workers.

“If our workers cannot have a job where they can be home and paid if they are sick, then we are sacrificing affordability for them,” Kitchen said. “That is just not the right thing to do.”