POMEROY — Meigs County Commissioners still have access to over a quarter-million dollars for health care equipment, and will must determine this year how it can be spent at the new federally-qualified health clinic to be built at Rocksprings.

Family Health Care, Inc. is about to close on the purchase of land near Meigs High School to build a $3 million, 10,000 square-foot clinic on land now owned by the Meigs County Community Improvement Committee. Construction is expected to take about a year.

Family Health Care currently operates a family outpatient clinic in Middleport, but has outgrown that space and another office in Pomeroy it occupied before moving to its current location. The new facility will allow two physicians and a nurse practitioner to see more patients and provide other outpatient services, including dental services, than are now possible.

The organization provides general family practice service and other medical services to patients regardless of insurance status or income. Fees are based on a sliding-scale fee, because the operation receives federal assistance for its services. It operates several clinics in southeastern Ohio from its base in Chillicothe.

Commissioner Mick Davenport, who worked to secure the appropriation through then-U.S. Rep. Ted Strickland, said Tuesday the board will work with Family Health Care to see if the funds can assist in equipping the new facility. Construction of the new clinic will be financed, in part, by federal funds awarded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Strickland secured the funds on the county’s behalf at a time commissioners were considering options for opening a new hospital to replace the Veterans Memorial Hospital, which closed in 1999. The county’s health care steering committee learned building and equipping was not the primary obstacle they faced. Finding someone to operate it is.

The new Family Health Care clinic will be built on a 13-acre site on Pomeroy Pike, at the intersection of U.S. 33 and Ohio 833. Commissioners hope that site will ultimately be home to a larger health care operation to include at least a 24-hour emergency room.

Commissioners secured the $235,000 grant award from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, to purchase necessary medical equipment for a hospital. However, Davenport said it must be spent by the end of 2010 or lost. He said it is possible that the grant could be used to help offset the cost of equipping Family Health Care’s new facility, and possibly making funds available for other needs there.

The new facility will be based largely on an office built three years ago in McArthur, but will be a bit larger.