A Northern Greene rural health clinic will use grant money to fight the opioid crisis.
Congressman of Illinois’s 13th district Rodney Davis revealed Wednesday that the Jersey Community Hospital District has received a one hundred fifty thousand-dollar grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development department.
The grant will reportedly be used to purchase and renovate a building that will house the Hospital District’s rural health clinic in Roodhouse, which has been providing treatment, counseling, education, and outreach efforts to combat opioid abuse in the surrounding area.
Jon Wade is the CEO of Jersey Community Hospital Healthcare. Wade says the clinic has already done so much but will now be able to continue their vital work.
“Jersey Community Hospital currently has a clinic there in Northern Greene County, in Roodhouse. Dr. Voigts has been there for a long time, and he is there with two other providers. We’re happy to support them in this work. What we’re going to be able to do with this $150,000 is apply it to a facility to put resources around what they already do.”
Wade explains that addiction is both a community epidemic and an individual struggle.
“The opioid epidemic, in general terms, probably doesn’t do enough justice to all the need that carries and the weight those terms carry. People have addictions based on prescriptions they’ve had, and trying to help those people to move them off of those or find another way to treat chronic pain and other things is time and resource intensive. We’re going to be able to provide some resources through this facility that can help with that. Space for counseling, some tele-medicine services, and other resources that will assist that physician and his staff.”
Wade and the Jersey Community Hospital Healthcare didn’t wait to start upgrades.
“We’ve already started on this based on the need that was there. What’s rewarding is that – through Congressman Davis and others – they’re supporting what we’re already trying to do. We purchased a building there and we’re renovating that to make the space that is needed and will have room for some additional services that we don’t have the space for there right now. It’ll have community space because education is a component of this and there isn’t really a meeting space that is adequate to bring people together and do some of those group events. The project was already on our path, but the grant just makes the project more robust and the time frame shorter.
You can find more information about Jersey Community Hospital online at jch.org.