TWO NEW HEALTH CLINICS TO SERVE SOUTH BAY, E. COUNTY
Centers to help low-income, uninsured patients
San Ysidro Health has opened two new clinics — in Chula Vista and El Cajon — to provide uninsured, lowincome families with health services and ease the burden on local hospitals.
The nonprofit health provider opened an urgent care center in Chula Vista in partnership with Scripps Mercy Hospital on Monday. It also opened a new clinic in El Cajon last week.
Kevin Mattson, CEO of San Ysidro Health, said the urgent care opening could not come at a better time, given the surge in COVID-19 cases in the region and its impact on hospitals.
“It’s just a solution to help keep people at the right level of care and use the emergency departments for what they are really intended as true emergencies,” Mattson said.
The urgent care is staffed with emergency room physicians who treat non-life-threatening illnesses and common issues, such as sore throats and minor injuries. It will be open
every day from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., and appointments are not necessary.
Most of the families San Ysidro Health serves live below the federal poverty level and are Latino, Mattson said. Most also live in areas hardest hit by the pandemic, he said, such as Chula Vista, National City and some southern San Diego neighborhoods.
The new Chula Vista center — at 333 H St., Suite 2080 — is one of two urgent care centers the nonprofit operates in Chula Vista.
The population San
Ysidro Health serves is often uninsured or reliant on Medi-Cal, said Ana Melgoza, vice president of external affairs for San Ysidro Health.
Often they don’t have prior relationships with primary care physicians, she said, so getting people to come to urgent care could help them build those relationships instead of going to hospital emergency rooms for non-emergencies.
On Monday one of the first urgent care patients limped in after being referred to the center by a hospital emergency room, San Ysidro Health leaders said. That’s one less person in the emergency room, they said.
San Ysidro Health estimates it will serve 100 people a day at its urgent care center.
Its new, 40,000-squarefoot clinic in El Cajon provides similar services to San Ysidro Health’s many other clinics in the region, including primary care, dentistry, behavioral health, chiropractic and laboratory services. It also will operate a Program of All-Inclusive Care, or PACE, a health and social services program for people age 55 and older.
The nonprofit estimates its El Cajon clinic at 875 El Cajon Blvd. will serve more than 4,000 patients in its first year.