FORT SMITH, Ark. — After 20 years in one location, a local non-profit that provides medical care to the needy is moving, but the Good Samaritan Clinic says that they will soon be able to see far more patients than ever before.
The Good Samaritan Clinic has been at its current location at 615 N. B Street in downtown Fort Smith since 2003, but by early next year, it’ll move to a new location at 1400 S. Zero in Fort Smith.
It’s a building that right now houses a Mercy Fort Smith walk-in clinic.
Good Samaritan Executive Director Patti Kimbrough says that right now, the clinic sees about 5,000 patients a year with four exam rooms, and she says this new location will have ten exam rooms.
“Just based on our numbers and the fact that we still have to turn people away because there's just not enough space or hours in the day to serve everyone. I think it'll be unreal. I think it's going to allow us that walk-in business. It will allow us to really expand as a second full-time provider because I think we're going see that many people," said Kimbrough
Kimbrough says the new location will allow the clinic to become more modern as well, “We're going to be able to transfer over to electronic medical records. And a lot of people think 'Well, that's just really expensive,' and it is but at the same time, it offers our patients so much more. It allows them to have an electronic prescription, and their medical records in a moment's notice.”
Kimbrough says Samaritan will also expand the clinic’s relationship with the Arkansas Colleges of Medicine (ARCOM) and UA Fort Smith, “They create such a wonderful addition to our staff and we get so attached to our medical students and our nursing students. Our partnership with ARCOM, training future doctors, our partnership with the University of Arkansas Fort Smith nursing school, all of those things. We're training future medical professionals in our community.”
The clinic is also a member of the National Association of Free and Charitable Clinics, which means it gets thousands of dollars a year in donated medicine and antibiotics.
Kimbrough says that will also help with the expected increase in patients.
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