Permanent public health clinic opens Feb. 7

Maricopa soon will have a freestanding public health clinic to replace the mobile unit that now visits the city three days a week at the park-and-ride lot on North John Wayne Parkway.

A grand opening and ribbon cutting ceremony will be held at 2 p.m. Feb. 7 for the Maricopa Public Health Clinic in front of the library on West Smith-Enke Road.

The Pinal County Division of Public Health will operate the clinic and provide immunizations, nutritional services, women’s health, newborn and infant wellness checks, and family planning.

Clinic hours will be 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., Tuesday through Friday.

Currently, the mobile unit is available 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday. 

The 11,800-square-foot clinic has eight exam rooms, a reception area, a child’s play area, a vital records area, several offices and a locker room and break room for employees.

“It is set up for privacy in a way you simply can’t have in an RV,” said Pinal County spokeswoman Heather Murphy.

An important goal of the county’s health department, Murphy said, is to increase the rate of childhood immunizations.

“If you go back six years and look at childhood immunizations we were at 40 percent for the county,” she said. “We have succeeded in bringing it up to more than 80 percent for many areas.”

Murphy said immunizations not only protect the child who was vaccinated, but all the people in contact with the child.

Immunizations are free to everyone 18 and younger, and other services are either free or provided on a sliding scale based on patient’s insurance, she said.

“The message we’d like to get out there is we want them to come to us if they don’t have insurance or in between insurance and need a cervical cancer screening,” she said.