Tillamook County Health and Human Services department’s Community Health Centers has opened a now County-owned and newly renovated building at 2111 8th Street in Tillamook to house and provide increased capacity for various community health services.
“We are proud to announce the opening of our remodeled building, which is conveniently located next door to our central county clinic and is an exciting new resource for Tillamook County residents,” said Marlene Putnam, Director of the Tillamook County Health and Human Services Department and Administrator of the Tillamook County Community Health Centers. “This is a result of the collaboration of many partners and provides increased access to healthcare and important related resources in our county.”
The building was transformed from three large working spaces into seven offices, a reception area, a medical exam room, a conference room, and a multipurpose room for health education and Oregon Health Plan (OHP) enrollment assistance.
Services housed in the new building include:
Environmental health
Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)
Public health home visiting nurses and community health workers
Other current public programs: Oregon Health Plan, tobacco cessation, mobile clinic staff, harm reduction, community education and outreach, and preparedness.
In addition, the Community Health Center’s first “Naloxbox” is installed on the outside west wall of the building, which allows community members access to free lifesaving opioid overdose care 24/7 including NARCAN nasal spray with instructions, CPR masks with instructions, and community resources on hope and recovery. This box is refilled weekly as needed.
“The Naloxbox was not something we could install previously due to lack of ownership of a building,” explained Rachel Koljesky, Mobile Clinic, Events and
Harm Reduction Program coordinator. “Now we can continue the mission of our harm reduction program, to support the pathway to hope, healing and recovering at
all hours, even when we are not staffed in office.”
The 8th street building was originally purchased by Tillamook County Community Health Centers in 2021 from direct revenue funds and the U.S. Health Resources & Services Administration’s American Rescue Plan Capital Improvement Awards grant. The grant was awarded to improve federally qualified health centers’ ability to support underserved communities. Immediately, the building was put into use without remodeling, fulfilling an urgent need as an acute/sick care clinic during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Since we have been able to scale back our COVID-19 response, we shifted back to developing the building into the vision we had for it,” Putman explained. “We have a fantastic team at our Health Centers, which serves all of Tillamook County, and we are excited to get to work in our new health services building.”
A formal ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new building will be held early in 2024.
More information will be announced soon.
About Tillamook County Community Health Centers
Tillamook County Community Health Centers has been a Federally Qualified Health Center since 1994, and provides a spectrum of accessible services including medical, dental, behavioral, and public health resources to improve the lives of all people in Tillamook County. Please visit our website at https://tillamookchc.org/ or on Facebook at TillamookCHC.