New Native medical center to open in Wasilla

Southcentral Foundation plans to build a 93,652-square-foot Valley Native Primary Care Center at Knik-Goose Bay Road and Palmer-Wasilla Highway.

The new clinic will replace a 5,457-square-foot site in a Wasilla strip mall.

The new clinic not only will employ 250 medical and office personnel -- compared to the 30 working at the current clinic -- but it will offer a wider array of services. Patients will be able to get dental, radiological, behavioral health and optometry care in the Valley rather than having to travel to Anchorage.

The clinic plans come as the Mat-Su population of Natives and American Indians is projected to nearly double in the next decade, according to Southcentral Foundation.

"There's a lot of culture shock with Natives coming from the villages anyway, and many have trouble getting to Anchorage for health services, so this will help a lot," Chief Gary Harrison of the Chickaloon Villages Traditional Council said Thursday. "A lot of them end up waiting too long to seek help or some just don't go in at all. It can be a real problem."

The Chickaloon Villages Traditional Council worked with the Knik Tribal Council, Southcentral Foundation and various other state organizations for the past five years to appeal for a new clinic.

"There were many who doubted it could be done," said Charles Clement, Southcentral Foundation vice president and chief operating officer. "It was kind of a long shot. I've never seen anything like this come together in such a perfect way in all the 12 years I've worked here."

The key funding for the new clinic is a $40 million loan of federal stimulus money from the USDA Rural Development Community Facilities Program.

That sum is being combined with a $10 million loan from Wells Fargo and additional financial support for staffing from the Indian Health Service, according to the Southcentral Foundation, an Anchorage-based nonprofit that is a major provider of health services to Natives in the region.

The project will break ground on 33 acres next spring and the clinic is scheduled to open in 2013.

"We're really looking forward to it," said Melissa Caswell, manager of the current Wasilla clinic behind the IHOP restaurant in the Creekside Plaza mall.

"We know there's a large need in the community, and we've been restrained on what we can offer. We're a very busy clinic. We continue to get new customers daily," she said.

Economic and social pressures in the villages and the high cost of living in Anchorage have contributed to an influx of Natives from rural Alaska at unprecedented rates, according to the Southcentral Foundation.

Neal Fried, an economist with the Alaska Department of Labor, recently completed a study about the Valley's health care industry.

"It's growing like crazy in the Valley for a variety of reasons," Fried said. "It's growing twice as fast as the rest of the country."

The growth of the Valley's senior population is one factor, he said, but so is the desire for local services.

Just in the last 10 years, the number of health care jobs in the Valley doubled, from 1,100 to 2,200, he said.

Of the top 10 private employers of Mat-Su residents in the state, Mat-Su Regional Medical Center is the third highest and Providence Health in Anchorage is the ninth.

With the addition of more than 200 jobs when the new Valley Native Primary Care Center opens, Southcentral Foundation will become the 14 th biggest employer in the area, Fried said.

"Currently about 11 percent of the jobs that exist in the Mat-Su Borough are in health care," Fried said.

"It's kind of amazing. It has literally doubled in 10 years."

Find K.T. McKee online at adn.com/contact/kmckee or call 352-6711.