Published: August 23, 2008 11:40 pm         

Cherokee health center buys hospital building

CHEROKEE — Great Salt Plains Health Center has purchased the building that previously housed Alfalfa County Hospital.

The old hospital building is located adjacent to GSPHC, 400 S. Ohio in Cherokee.

The building was constructed in the 1970s by Alfalfa County Hospital. The hospital closed during the 1990s. Since then, the building has been owned by private individuals.

GSPHC plans to use the building for expansion as needed.

“The purchase of the former hospital building will allow the health center to expand as mandated in our federal grant,” said Executive Di-rector Tim Starkey. “The government requires federally qualified health centers to provide primary care, mental health and dental services. The hospital will provide the space that we need to offer those services.”

GSPHC has no immediate plans for expansion, he said. The building has been unoccupied for a number of years and will need a facelift before it will be ready.

“We are currently in the process of determining which systems are still operable and what will need to be replaced,” Starkey said. “We are also still going through a start-up phase at the health center. We still need a few months to finish creating an organization that is able to fully serve the community. It may be a year or two before we are able to use the hospital building to its full potential.”

The health center began seeing patients in January and offers family medicine care six days per week as well as part-time counseling services.

“We are still working to find a dentist that will agree to serve the tremendous amount of patients that we see with bad dental problems,” Starkey said.

Dr. Keenan Fer-guson has started his practice in Chero-kee, too. He previously was in practice at the Integris Family Medicine Clinic in Enid.

Ferguson attended Oklahoma State University College of Osteopathic Medicine and completed his residency in family practice at Mayo Clinic in 2006. Also practicing at GSPHC is physician assistant Doug Cheek. He graduated from Wichita State University in 2003 and has five years experience in family practice and emergency medicine.

Great Salt Plains Health Center provides services to outpatients only.