Southern 7 Health Department opens new health clinic in Pope County

GOLCONDA, Ill. (KBSI) – Southern 7 Health Department held a ribbon cutting for the Pope County Public Health Clinic in Golconda.

“Having this clinic closer to home makes the access just a little bit easier,” said Hilary Meisenheimer, assistant program manager with Southern 7.

This comes following the move of the clinic last year to 106 N. Market Street.

“So being very rural, and then also having a lot of families that are lower income, access to transportation and just the ability to get to their healthcare providers is a challenge for a lot of families in the area,” said Meisenheimer.

The department has provided health services to residents of Pope County for more than 20 years. The new location in Golconda brings opportunities for future expansion of clinic services without increasing costs to residents.

Pope County Public Health Nurse Teri Reynolds says as a result of the move, both the WIC and Family Case Management are returning to Pope County.

“On the public health side, we can do the STD testing, we can do pregnancy testing, we can draw blood lets on kids one and two, and we can do immunizations,” said Reynolds.

It has been more than 10 years since Southern 7 has been able to provide WIC and Family Case Management programs in Pope County due to previous state budget cuts.