The Webster City Medical Clinic building was obtained by Van Diest Medical Center with the acquisition of the Webster City Medical Clinic. The clinic providers and staff are now part of the Van Diest Family Health Clinic.

Last summer, the hospital gifted the building to the county.

“The Van Diest Medical Center Board offered the property to us without a cost,” said Supervisor Doug Bailey during a recent board meeting.

“The building is to be used for mental health services and other health-care related services for the community,” he said. The county hoped to bring Central Iowa Recovery on board to provide the services. CIR provides psychiatric rehabilitation service to individuals in 15 counties of Central Iowa, including Hamilton.

“The intent was to expand health services — mainly mental health,” said Lisa Ridge, chief executive officer of Van Diest Medical Center. “We did an evaluation, exploring the best ways to do that. The services needed to encompass all of Hamilton County and surrounding areas.”

“The building will be full of occupants by summertime,” Bailey told the hospital board of trustees last week. He said there are currently four tenants confirmed for the building.

Head Start is expected to move into the building in mid-March. Bailey said the remodeling is progressing for that area, with sheet rock going up now. Head Start will be located in the southeast corner of the building and will have its own entrance.

Hamilton County Public Health will also be moving into the building. Public Health has been operating out of its James Street location. In the new facility, the agency will be located in the south portion in the main part of the building.

Central Iowa Recovery is currently located in the Social Services building on Fair Meadow Drive. The agency will move into the clinic and will utilize the north end of the building, facing Collins Street.

“They will occupy a portion of the area where the mental health services will be. Those are yet to be decided,” he said.

The main entrance of the clinic building will serve as the entrance to the mental health services, Bailey said.

The original plan for the facility was to develop respite rooms and transitional living recovery services, according to Bailey. The supervisors recently received notice that the proposed service plan was denied by the regional staff. The notice also said the staff would recommend that the governance board deny the request. Regional staff offered a counter proposal for the facility.

“They did propose that they would offer to hire a consultant for CIR to look at creating a subacute mental health unit in the facility,” Bailey said.

A subacute unit would be a higher level of care than what was originally planned and would cost much more to operate.

“There is also a higher level of risk and a higher level of liability,” he said.

“I don’t believe that is the type of service we want to be delivering there. That’s never been the intention,” he said, adding that such a unit would need to be able to be locked down.

“It’s just totally the opposite of what we had been looking for. We’ve always wanted to do something that would benefit the 75 to 80 percent of those individuals who have mental health diagnoses, but who don’t need to be treated at the subacute level.”

Bailey said he hoped the county could continue to work with the regional staff.

“We need to be able to develop a variety of services that is appropriate for that setting and for the region,” he said.

Another occupant that the county was not ready to reveal has confirmed their tenancy.

“We’ll be starting on their space at about the time the Head Start classroom is getting finished up,” he said. That entity will have office space just inside the front entrance and to the right.

“We appreciate the confidence the hospital has for the county to develop this,” he said at board meeting last fall.

Drs. Subhash Sahai, Sushma Sahai and Anil Sahai opened the Webster City Medical Clinic in 1983. The clinic building has been vacant since the merger with VDMC in 2017.

Bailey noted that on the entry wall to the clinic was a plaque that states the Webster City Medical Clinic is dedicated “to the service of mankind.”

“It’s our intention to carry the message on that plaque on into the future … it’s just going to be a different use,” he said.