Expansion project will allow Tri City Health Partnership to serve more patients

Demand for the services that Tri City Health Partnership provides has spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Tri City Health Partnership operates a free private, nonprofit medical and dental clinic at 318 Walnut St. in downtown St. Charles. An expansion project now underway will allow the clinic to help even more people.

A dedicated medical clinic is set to open in September after the nonprofit group was recently gifted a new building next to its current facility.

The donor wishes to remain anonymous. The building previously housed an insurance agency.

“The patients won’t have to wait as long to get in to see somebody,” said Kim Lamansky, executive director of Tri City Health Partnership. “We want to speed that up. And the same with dental. Next door, the medical room there is going to be converted into a second dental exam room. So we’re literally doubling our space.”

For those people who are confined to a wheelchair or need to use crutches or a walker, they will be able to easily access the new building through the use of a lift. The original plan was to move the dental clinic into the new building. But those plans recently changed.

“More medical volunteers are needed on a day-to-day basis than dental volunteers,” Lamansky said. “There’s more that treat on the medical side than on the dental side.”

The clinic is manned by physicians, nurses, dentists, hygienists and other professionals who volunteer their time.

“We’re at about 168 volunteers, and that’s including some of the offsite referral specialists that will take patients,” she said. “But the bulk of them come to the clinic to treat patients.”

The new building will also house a pharmacy that will be dedicated to medical needs.

“Currently, we have a pharmacy next door, but it also includes everything for dental needs,” Lamansky said. “It’s not just a pharmacy with medications. It houses everything over there.”

State Sen. and former St. Charles mayor Don DeWitte, R-St. Charles, was instrumental in helping Tri City Health Partnership obtain a $140,000 grant to cover the majority of the construction costs for the new building.

Tri City Health Partnership is marking its 20th anniversary this year. On Aug. 21, the clinic plans to celebrate its anniversary as well as celebrate the grand opening of the new building.

“The goal is to have this ready to go and start seeing patients by Sept. 1,” Lamansky said.

Their patients are also helping with the project.

“We do have some other little projects that we are doing here, like painting and power washing, and a lot of our patients have volunteered to come and help with that,” she said. “How cool is that? They want to be able to give back.”

She thanked St. Charles city officials for their help in moving the project forward.

“They’ve been so wonderful with helping us with this project,” Lamansky said. “They know who we are and what we do and they want to give us as much guidance as they can. They’ve been incredible.”