CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Officials with West Virginia Health Right held a community forum on Tuesday to discuss a new satellite clinic to open next month on Charleston’s West Side.
The new office at 511 Central Ave. will open June 1. Crews are currently remodeling the space, in which work is being funded through multiple grants.
Angie Settle, West Virginia Health Right’s executive director, said opening an office on Charleston’s West Side has been on her mind for years.
“For people that come to Health Right and work there, it’s way more than a career and it’s way more than people interested in health care,” she said during Tuesday’s event at A More Excellent Way Life Center Church. “It’s really something we are passionate about.”
Part of the reason behind opening the office is to provide health equity. Shayla Leftridge, the clinic’s director of community outreach, diversity, equity and inclusion, mentioned while most women can access breast cancer screenings at 40, women of color have a higher risk of having breast cancer at a younger age and may not receive treatment when necessary.
“Equitable health care would be making sure for women who have a pre-existing condition or a need or something in their history or family, we would be able to screen them or send them somewhere to be screened and they should be able to have that paid for by insurance,” she said.
The office will be open Monday through Wednesday between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m., Thursday from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Friday from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.