Valley Professionals Community Health Center

Community members from Vermillion and Parke Counties, with help from Union Hospital's Richard G. Lugar Center for Rural Health and Union Hospital Clinton (formerly West Central Community Hospital), came together in 2007 to establish a new health clinic to provide improved access to primary health care services. This clinic is located at 777 South Main Street in Clinton, Indiana. The parties successfully completed a Federal grant application to the Federal Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), that was approved for funding. Health Centers across the country competed for these funds.

The clinic's mission is to provide comprehensive, quality primary health care and related services to those in need of medical care including the medically underserved and vulnerable populations of Vermillion and Parke counties in Indiana without regard to the patient's ability to pay.

The clinic, the Vermillion-Parke Community Health Center, Inc. (VPCHC) is a Federally-Qualified Community Health Center (FQHC). A FQHC, also called a CHC or Community Health Center, is a non-profit consumer-directed health care corporation that provides comprehensive primary and preventive care services.

A governing board was established to help implement and guide the development of this health center. Governing board members currently include: Jerry Hawkins, President, Becky Holbert, Vice President, Susan Goodman, Secretary, Lou Bonomo, Treasurer, Janie Pound, Betty Mooney, and Joan Kanizer.

The clinic's board chair, Jerry Hawkins, stated "we are extremely excited and the recent award announcement. These funds will go a long way toward helping us to establish this much needed clinic right here in our backyard."

The clinic in Clinton, Indiana officially opened in January 2008. It has since been renamed Valley Professionals Community Health Center and has grown to include five additional clinics in Montgomery, Parke, Vermillion, and Vigo counties, as well as, a Mobile School-Based Health Center that visits fourteen schools in Parke and Vermillion counties. VPCHC is a patient centered medical home.

For more information about the incredible work that VPCHC is doing visit their website here.