By John Crane
Published: March 25, 2011
BROSVILLE—
It will offer extended hours, on-site X-rays, lab testing and primary care for patients of all ages in fast-growing southwestern Pittsylvania County.
State and local officials and hospital representatives broke ground on Danville Regional Medical Center Family Healthcare Center next to Brosville Industrial Park on Friday.
“I hope this will be the foretaste of many other good things to happen,” said Frank R. Campbell, chair of the Danville Regional Medical Center Board, during the ceremony.
Campbell praised DRMC CEO Eric Deaton and hospital staff for their efforts and said the new facility is DRMC’s way of making medical care accessible to Brosville residents.
“This is one of the milestones for this community,” said Tim Barber, chairman of the Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors. Barber said he appreciates DRMC’s commitment to the area. The center will be in Barber’s district.
Construction of the 4,245-square-foot facility - which will be located at 10390 Martinsville Highway - will take about three months.
Dr. Steven Bridges, currently based at the hospital’s Family Healthcare Center in Danville, will serve as the full-time physician at the Brosville center. Deaton said the center will be a walk-in clinic including eight exam rooms, an X-ray facility and lab testing so patients would not have to travel to Danville for that service.
“We’ll see everyone from newborns to geriatric patients,” Deaton said.
The center will accept most major insurance plans, including Medicare and Medicaid. Its hours will be from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday-Friday and a half-day on Saturday.
During an interview before the groundbreaking, Danville Physician Practices Director Cathy Shelton said the facility will bring about eight jobs and will be a physician’s office with extended hours.
Danville Physician Practices, which includes the physicians employed at DRMC, will run the clinic, Shelton said.
Westover Supervisor Coy Harville, vice chairman of the Danville-Pittsylvania Regional Industrial Facility Authority, said the center will be a marketing tool for RIFA officials to help attract a major industry to the nearby Berry Hill Road industrial mega park site.
The center could serve employees from a major employer that would locate to the mega park site, Harville said.
State Sen. Bill Stanley, R-Franklin County, said of the new center, “As we turn over more dirt, we turn over more progress.”
“This ... Family Healthcare Center is a perfect model of what we need in Southside Virginia,” Stanley said, adding that primary care physicians are “hard to come by” in rural areas like Pittsylvania County and the preventive care at the new center will help bring down health care costs. The facility makes up an important part of economic development in the area, he added.
