Family Healthcare Associates After Hours – Christy Laxton (right) pushes her son, Nathan, 6, on a swing at a Pineville city park as her daughter, Sydney, 9, swings behind.
There was a time when her 8-year-old daughter broke her arm, the parts of the broken bone were visible on her daughter’s skin.
Family Healthcare Associates After Hours
The accident happened at their home in the evening, forcing the family to drive 50 minutes to the nearest hospital, in Beckley, for an X-ray and stay overnight for a cast.
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No medical care after 4:30 p.m. in Wyoming County, and that is the way it has been for many years.
“There have been many times after 4 or 5 o’clock where one of my kids has started having a fever or been injured at home or at practice, and we’ve had to go out of state to get care,” Laxton said, noting the added cost of gas money on top of medical expenses.
Access to health care in Southern West Virginia is a long-standing issue due to hospital closings and a lack of specialty care. But a group of Wyoming County residents have set a goal of bringing after-hours care to their community within a few years following a non-traditional model.
This region is one of the unhealthiest in the country, according to a report by the Ministry of Health and Labor at the country, where many elderly people live in poor to frail health.
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“You’re as healthy as your people,” Landon Blankenship, a Wyoming County resident and chief nursing officer at Hospice of Southern West Virginia, said.
Wyoming County has not had a hospital with an emergency room since Wyoming General Hospital, in Mullens, closed in 1988 due, in part, to population decline.
It is the only surrounding counties – Boone, Logan, McDowell, Mercer, Mingo and Raleigh – that does not have a 24-hour emergency room.
Depending on where you live in Wyoming County, a hospital can be 25 minutes away, but some towns can be more than an hour away from the nearest care.
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The region faces a number of long-term problems common to the state’s coal regions: an aging and shrinking population, limited health care providers in local communities, and unemployment following closed coal mines. A quarter of its inhabitants live in poverty.
There are a number of medical day clinics: Family Healthcare Associates Inc., in Mullens, Oceana and Pineville; and Tug River Health Center, a pediatric clinic, in Pineville.
Family Healthcare Associates closes its clinics at 4:30 p.m. Dr. Sam Muscari, one of the four doctors who work at the clinics, said that doctors take calls from patients in the morning hours.
For Laxton and other parents, an after-school sports injury or a midnight illness means packing a sick child — or perhaps the entire family — to drive to care.
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When Laxton’s son, now 6, was just three weeks old, he started having trouble breathing at night.
As she made the 50-minute drive to Beckley, her son was coughing and wheezing. He couldn’t see her because he was in his car seat facing the other way.
“It was three or four in the morning,” Laxton said. “You can’t see him and he’s breathing hard. I stopped on the way to make sure he didn’t get caught.”
There are three ambulance services in the region; However, the average transit time is usually 45 minutes.
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Many county residents don’t live on major, easily accessible highways, according to Stephanie Lusk, an extension agent with the WVU Extension Service in Wyoming County.
“A large number of people live screaming or on the top of a mountain. “Most of the time, if it was an emergency, the ambulance would find them,” he said.
Susan Stafford, director of Head Start for MountainHeart Community Services, in Matheny, works regularly with low-income mothers and pregnant women in the region. His center also serves people recovering from opioid addiction.
It’s one of the few nonprofits in the area, and Stafford said they sometimes offer transportation to limited doctor’s appointments during daytime hours.
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When it comes to maternity care or late-night pregnancy issues, she explained that sometimes women who serve can afford to have someone take them to Beckley or another regional hospital. But, sometimes they can’t.
“It deters people or prevents people from seeking after-hours care, and that can be life-threatening,” she said. “We really need this service.”
Blankenship pointed to the recent tourism boom in the area, as people travel to Mullens and Pineville to ride ATVs on the Hatfield-McCoy Trail System’s Pinnacle Trailhead. There is also a push to build the Guyandotte River Trail as a way to get some revenue from struggling coal-producing towns.
He said there is concern that it could happen on routes that often see children riding ATVs.
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A group of residents, including Laxton and Blankenship, realized that the chances of finding a hospital or something like Urgent Care are unlikely, so the group is looking to work with a non-profit organization or university to bring more medical care to the region.
Terry Bartley, a community coach with the West Virginia Community Development Hub, has spent the past year conducting discussions between community members and potential stakeholders in Pineville.
Bartley and a group of residents, calling themselves “Healthy Wyoming County,” have set a goal of opening the after-hours clinic by 2021.
The clinic will likely be funded largely through grants, Bartley said, pointing to McDowell County, where a grant recently funded a school-based clinic.
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“It feels strange to be sure about it because I know how difficult the idea of opening a clinic was a few years ago, but at the same time, the funding is there,” she said. “I think we will be in a position to make this happen.”
Bartley hopes to partner with Southern West Virginia Community and Technical College, Saulsville, to get a clinic on their campus. The school, which has not yet been entered into the discussion, does not offer a nursing program in its Wyoming County location.
The Blankenship reached out to Future of Nursing West Virginia, which provides entrepreneurship courses for nurses who want to start a health-related business.
“It’s about finding the right person,” he said. “I have communicated with them about businessmen who are nurses in the area who want to start a business or who want to increase the business opportunity in the area.”
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There has been a push over the past 15 years to bring after-hours care to the county, according to Wyoming County Circuit Clerk David “Bugs” Stover. A lifelong resident of Wyoming County, he also serves as the unofficial county historian.
Muscari, who is part owner of the largest practice in the county and is also a county commissioner, said he doesn’t see a need for the clinic.
According to him, hospitals are “within half an hour of almost anywhere in the region” and there is “a good ambulance system.”
“It’s a difficult and difficult problem to solve,” he said. “I don’t really see this kind of financial benefit. The costs will outweigh the benefits.”
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“They are the ones who will be driving health care in Wyoming County. They know these patients, and they know what they need,” he said.
There are other obstacles: rural location, less than ideal working hours, cost and space – more than 90 percent of the region’s land is owned by foreign organizations.
“I think in southern communities, we get beat up a lot, and we feel like things shouldn’t be better than they are,” said Bartley, a Boone County native. “It doesn’t mean it has to be like this forever.
Amelia Ferrell Knisely is a team member with Report for America, a campaign of The GroundTruth Project. Reach her at amelia.ferrell@, 304-348-4886 or follow @ameliaknisely on Twitter.
Ambler Medical Associates
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An email message containing instructions on how to reset your password has been sent to the email address listed in your account.Grimsby Medical Associates is a medical clinic located in the Town of Grimsby, Ontario. Our team approach connects your family doctor with other health care team providers to give you the best care. The focus is on keeping you and your family healthy, not just treating you when you get sick.
Family Physician; Family Medicine Residents; Nursing Team; Management Team; Mental Health Team; Chronic Disease Team, Geriatrics Team; Dietitian and Diabetic Team
Each of these health professionals plays a different role in your health care so that you and your family can benefit from a holistic approach to health.
Covid 19 Information
After Hours Clinic and Care: After Hours Clinic appointments are available for urgent matters only that arise outside of clinic hours.
Patients will see an On Call Doctor – not your regular doctor. If you want to see your GP please call teh office to make an appointment.
Please note: Saturday phone calls are for booking same day urgent care issues only. The host will not be able to book appointments for other dates or perform other tasks. If the Saturday clinic is full, the phones will be answered
