Frederiksted Clinic Getting Ready for Re-Opening

They were decking the halls in Frederiksted Tuesday, and it had nothing to do with the upcoming holiday. The staff of Frederiksted Health Care were moving equipment and doing final preparations – making a list and checking it twice – for the grand re-opening next week of the Ingeborg Nesbitt Clinic in Frederiksted.

The facility on Strand Street on the island’s west side has been shuttered and quiet since mold was discovered there in early 2008. After a summer, in which the pace of construction kept the building humming, the health service is finally ready to return to its roots, and on Tuesday the staff opened the door to give media a peek inside the refurbished building.

It really is a little like an early Christmas present, FHC Director Masserae Sprauve Webster said Tuesday as she conducted reporters through the building, and not just because of the many bright colors inside and out, or the 20,000 feet of new wiring it comes wrapped in.

For more than three years, FHC has been operating its clinic services at the Herbert Grigg Home for the Aged in Kingshill, while at the same time, planning for and seeing through the rehabilitation of the Nesbitt Clinic. Either would be a full time job, she said. Taken together, the two projects have kept people busy.

Webster said she usually began her days at the Grigg Home site to make sure the clinic was functioning smoothly, then she would swing out to the clinic to oversee the remodeling, and then head to her office where the usual daily paperwork was waiting for her.

When the doors closed in 2008, Webster said, people assumed it would be for a couple of months, three or four at most, and the mold-remediation would cost about $300,000. Once workers started looking deeper, they realized the problem was much bigger than they’d anticipated, and the scope of the work much greater.

More than three years later at a cost of almost $3 million, the clinic is ready once again to serve the public.

Webster said the re-opening brings mixed emotions. On the one hand, it will be good to be back in Frederiksted, which has been clamoring for the clinic. On the other hand, she said, Kingshill is more centrally located, and even in the difficult surroundings, was able to attract and serve more patients – about 15,000 patient-visits a year at the Grigg Home, versus about 9,000 a year in Frederiksted before the closure, she said.

As long as that much effort had gone into the building, the space was reorganized and remodeled to make the best use of it. There are now 14 examining rooms, including two in the dental suite, which will open in January. There is also a suite where the V.I. Division of Mental Health will offer services, an ophthalmologist area, a full lab where the clinic will be able to do its own blood work, and a pharmacy, along with conference and staff rooms and business offices.

The facility has been completely wired for online connectivity in keeping with FHC’s move to electronic record keeping earlier this year. It will also have wireless hubs, so that medical personnel can use the latest technology, and patients in waiting areas can check their email or surf the Internet while they wait.

Rosie Mackay led the media tour through the area, pointing to places where remodeling had been completed, or where work still needed to be done, and yelling out warnings to people moving furniture and equipment in.

"Watch my walls! Watch my walls," she said, as a desk was turned carefully around a corner.

As safety officer and program manager for the remodeling project, Mackay has a personal investment in the facility. She was born in the three-story annex next door, she said, and has served as the liaison on the project.

The mechanical contractor, who installed all the new air conditioning and water pumping equipment, was William R. Nash. V.I. Special Spaces Inc., a Frederiksted company, was general contractor. Daniel Coughlin, also of Frederiksted, was architect and engineer on the project.

The community will be invited Dec. 7, for a grand opening ceremony with speakers, music, and tours, but only until about noon, Webster said. At 1 p.m. the clinic will start serving patients, which is what people have been waiting for all along.