March 10, 2017:

Santa Rosa Community Health Centers has landed a $2.5 million contract to provide specialized services to Sonoma Developmental Center residents affected by the facility’s planned closure.

The bulk of the funds will be used to purchase property in west Santa Rosa where SRCHC plans to build a new community clinic. That clinic, a $10 million project, will be specially designed to serve patients who are developmentally disabled but will be open to all.

“It will have large exam rooms, larger doorways and hallways and a quiet waiting room for people who have high sensitivity to noise,” said Naomi Fuchs, SRCHC’s chief executive officer.

With the scheduled closure of Sonoma Developmental Center in 2018, its remaining 350 residents will be transferred to community-based housing in Sonoma, Solano and Napa counties. That would leave many of them without in-house medical, dental, mental and adaptive services.

The new clinic will feature physical therapy and specially designed dental operating rooms to accommodate wheelchairs and gurneys, as well as sedation dentistry, a medical procedure where patients are given sedative drugs to reduce patient fear and anxiety. The health center will include a qualified clinical director and medical director to oversee operations, and it will have a higher staffing ratio than other SRCHC clinics.

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Provided courtesy of The Press Democrat, by Martin Espinoza.