A Plus Family Healthcare Celebrates Expansion of Facility and Services for National Health Center Week With Chamber Ribbon Cutting

A Plus Family Healthcare celebrates National Health Center Week with a Chamber ribbon cutting.

Darren Doyle, story and photos:
A Plus Family Healthcare in Brownsville celebrated a recent expansion of both their local facility and services provided as they celebrated the nationwide observance of National Health Center Week, which runs through Saturday of this week. They recently had a proclamation signed by Edmonson County Judge/Executive Scott Lindsey to commemorate the week.

The Edmonson County Chamber of Commerce hosted a ribbon cutting today in partnership with A Plus, along with the employees, several community members, and friends.

The local clinic said the week highlights the role that Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) like A Plus Family HealthCare play in delivering high-quality, affordable, and accessible healthcare to under-served communities across America.

"Having the ability to sign a proclamation with the fiscal court allowed us to celebrate National Health Center Week, which is FQHCs all across the country, and the ability to serve underserved and rural communities all across the nation," said A Plus CEO Patrick Merritt.  

A Plus Family Healthcare CEO Patrick Merritt discusses services offered at the clinic.

A crowd of community members fellowship after a ribbon cutting at A Plus Family Healthcare.

Community members take a tour of the expanded facility at A Plus Family Healthcare.

Merritt said services provided at the clinic include everything from pediatrics through geriatrics.

"We do primary care, behavioral health, all vaccinations, we have community health workers, that do every type of benefit for people that may have barriers or access to care, food disparities, anything of that nature," he said. "But the biggest point is just being a hub inside the community, so we can not only facilitate school-based health care, to whether psychiatric care, but all the way to how can we help and how can we support other local programs? So, you know, we worked with our schools and our school-based "Kid Care" program, and we try to figure out, how can we help support them. But being that hub, that's how we try to figure out all the different ways to serve our community."

While today's event was part of an expansion celebration, Merritt discussed even bigger plans for a new facility that's in the works for Brownsville just down the road.

"With our current growth, surrounding communities are coming here. So we've had a lot of Grayson County overflow with Dr. Camas coming here. We know that we need dental in this area. We know that behavioral health is a big need, and that's been rapidly growing inside of our organization, as well as outside. We have acreage secured for a new facility but we want to make sure whatever we build can last 50, 60, 70 years. It can give back to the community for a long time and give us the opportunity to bring other additional services, other collaborations for hospitals, specialty, things like that to the neighborhood so that we don't have to leave Edmonson County for those services."

Merritt said the time frame for the new facility was roughly three to five years in the future.

The clinic is located in the Main Street Center in Brownsville with another location in Elizabethtown. Call 270-975-4050  for an appointment and the clinic is taking new patients.