PHOTO COURTESY SANGAMON COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH
The Sangamon County Division of Public Well being will endure a $6 million renovation this yr as step one in increasing the providers provided there.
The Sangamon County Division of Public Well being’s constructing on Springfield’s east aspect is getting ready to a multimillion-dollar renovation that would make providers extra accessible to residents.
“We hope it is a $6 million venture,” stated Sangamon County Board Chair Andy Van Meter. “And we hope that we can do it solely with federal funds, however we’re experiencing – as everybody else locally is experiencing – that these building initiatives have gotten increasingly costly. Our aim, which we’ve achieved to some extent, is to offer optimistic help providers that the county provides that may be accessed by group residents in a single place with simple parking and easy accessibility.”
Sangamon County Division of Public Well being Director John Ridley stated Southern Illinois College plans to maneuver its communicable illness division from the Springfield Memorial Hospital campus to the reworked public well being constructing. The division tracks and treats tuberculosis, sexually transmitted infections and different infectious illnesses.
“It is a collaborative solution to actually work collectively as a group and convey all these issues into a pleasant bundle of providers,” Ridley stated.
SIU officers declined to touch upon the deliberate transfer.
Ridley stated the transform can even create bigger places of work for caseworkers dealing with the dietary program Girls Infants and Youngsters, or WIC.
“A prototypical case could be a mom with a younger baby after which possibly one other baby within the automotive seat, and so they’re going into an workplace with certainly one of our case managers that’s possibly a 100-square-foot workplace,” he stated. “And there is simply not sufficient room for everyone. What we’re doing is redesigning these workplace areas to make them a bit of bigger. So, when the guardian is in there with the case supervisor, and so they’re going by way of the entire documentation and data they should get the youngsters and the household registered, there’s room for the youngsters to be in one other a part of the room with out getting in the way in which.”
Ridley stated he additionally expects laboratories utilized by county nurses to be expanded, together with a convention room that shall be moved and expanded.
“We’ll transfer that convention room all the way in which as much as the entrance and develop it a bit of bit so it may possibly deal with 100 individuals. Will probably be simpler for different group teams and group members to make use of that house,” he stated.
About $6 million in federal COVID aid funds shall be used towards the venture, Ridley stated.
“It is cash we’ve that was allotted to us from the pandemic. There are deadlines in place to make the most of these funds. And we’re making an attempt to try this in one of the simplest ways we are able to to present again to the group what they deserve,” he stated.
The county has not but put the venture out for bids amongst space contractors. O’Shea Builders has been retained as the development supervisor.
“That is totally different from them truly coming in and doing the work,” Ridely stated. “However they’re serving to us by way of the development administration piece of it from a planning standpoint. … I am in the midst of the design and improvement section. In order quickly as we are able to get a set of drawings finalized and and we are able to get all the pieces inside our price range, I want to see issues begin within the second quarter of calendar yr ’25,” Ridely stated.
Van Meter stated this can be just the start of the growth of providers on the County Well being Division, which might occur in phases.
“The Capital Township Basic Help Workplace is there now,” he stated. “What we’re hoping so as to add is a workforce coaching workplace, and we have been speaking to the Veterans Help Fee about maybe providing their providers there in order that veterans can obtain advantages in the identical location. Our aim is one-stop searching for all of those providers, and we’re hoping we are able to match all of it inside one constructing.”
