EVERETT — A nonprofit clinic that opened in 2004 to help low-income and uninsured patients is now expanding its mental health services, help that many children, adults and families struggle to get.
Providence Everett Healthcare Clinic, which now provides about 1,000 counseling appointments a year, will be able to serve nearly three times as many patients over the next year.
Low-income families listed mental health services as one of their top needs, according to a report last year by Snohomish County’s Human Services department.
The increase in counseling services is one part of an overall clinic expansion that has just been completed. Fundraising that brought in more than $800,000 in contributions paid for an additional 1,253 feet of space to be added to the clinic.
Five new rooms were built, three of which will be used for medical appointments. This means the number of medical appointments for children and adults can increase from the current 9,500 to 11,000 appointments a year, said Dr. Tony Room, who oversees the clinic.
Providing mental health services has been goal of the clinic almost from the day it opened in January 2004.
Up to 40 percent of adults being treated at the north Everett clinic have mental health issues, Roon said.
Although the clinic will provide about 1,000 counseling appointments this year, it still has a list of patients waiting for help, he said. Next year, the clinic is expected to be able to provide about 3,000 counseling sessions.
A new service, which will provide counseling for new moms, is expected to begin in January.
About 70 percent of mothers feel blue after delivering a baby and about 20 percent are clinically depressed, Roon said.
The service also hopes to help build a better relationship between parents and a new baby, he said.
More services for other adults and older children also will be available early next year.
The services are being provided through a collaboration of the University of Washington School of Nursing, which also has helped provide health care services at the clinic.
“When we opened the clinic and began seeing that so many of the patients had mental health disorders, I began talking to colleagues at the School of Nursing about what we could do about it,” said Eleanor Bond, a UW nursing professor.
Nursing students need to know more about mental health conditions so they can better recognize problems and help patients get the help they need, she said. “It’s a huge unmet need in primary care.”
Since the nonprofit clinic opened, about 80 nurse-practitioner students have received training by working with its patients, she said, learning from faculty members who are volunteering at the clinic.
The UW recently received a five-year, $1.4 million federal grant to help with both expanding services to clinic patients and provide training to nursing students, Bond said.
Part of the money will be used to pay for a member of the nursing school faculty who specializes in pediatrics to work at the clinic one day a week, Bond said.
Faculty specialists in the issues of aging and postpartum depression also will be working part-time at the clinic, she said.
Bond said she has been impressed with the amount of financial support the clinic has received from the community, both during the recent fund drive and the initial $1 million effort to open the clinic.
“It’s very interesting to see the community come together to meet the needs of its people,” Bond said.
Roon first contacted the UW about the possibility of working together to provide services to clinic patients about three years ago, said Nancy Woods, dean of the UW nursing school.
“The more he and I talked, the more I realized we had a great opportunity” for both students to learn skills and faculty members to provide care, Woods said.
“What we dreamed of is having students work side-by-side with nurses and nurse practitioners in this kind of practice,” she said. “It’s been ideal.”
The nonprofit Everett clinic works hard to coordinate patients’ physical and mental health issues, she said.
“We realize that well-being and health mean you can’t focus simply on someone’s heart if the source of their problems might be that they’re depressed,” Woods said.
“Dr. Roon’s goal of bringing more mental health care into the clinic has been absolutely on target,” she added. “We feel honored to partner with that.”
Reporter Sharon Salyer 425-339-3486 or salyer@heraldnet.com.
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