Local Health Department to expand to new location

HAYS COUNTY — Ensuring the health and safety of its residents is the mission of Hays County.

In pursuit of this endeavor, the Hays County Local Health Department (HCLHD) is in the process of moving to a new building, located at 101 Thermon Drive in San Marcos. The department intends on expanding its services by offering immunizations and STI treatments and the new location will provide the necessary space for additional offices and exam rooms for clinical functions.

Currently, the department offers the following services:

• Tuberculosis (TB) testing and treatment (clinical)

• Immunizations (clinical)

• STI treatment (clinical)

• Indigent Health Care Program (non-clinical): A service that provides low-income Texas residents who don’t qualify for other state or federal health care programs to have access to health care services.

• Immunization Registry (non-clinical): Staff is trained to assist individuals in registering themselves and their children into IMMTRAC2, the state immunization registry. This is a statewide record system that works with providers and pharmacies to maintain a safe, secure, and exchangeable record of a patient’s immunizations.

• Healthy Hays Series (non-clinical): This program offers educational opportunities to the county about various health topics to address health disparities.

Local Health Department Manager Matthew Gonzales explained that the department helps those who are underinsured, uninsured or low-income.

“Our services are more geared towards those who are underinsured, uninsured or low income, meaning that we can provide the services to them at a more affordable rate due to the fact that we may have a contract with the state that funds it, the federal government or we’ll seek reimbursement through some other type of program,” Gonzales said. “So they're not having to receive these charges based off of insurance or an exorbitant cash rate. … Here at the health department, we're primarily focusing on disease, so immunizations are tied to disease, preventing them. But then STIs and TB are also diseases that we are trying to treat and prevent. Whereas if you go to a different clinic, there, you can establish your primary care provider and they'll see you for physicals or any other types of sickness or illness, which you just won't receive from the health department, unfortunately, because we don't have a practitioner in-office.”

While the new HCLHD building will be located in San Marcos, the department is hoping to offer some services in other parts of the county.

“We would like to house the department near the central operations of the county and near its current location. We understand it can be difficult for individuals who need our services to reach us physically,” said Gonzales. “We eventually hope to offer our non-clinical services at the county’s precinct offices and to offer our immunizations through our new mobile vaccination van.”

Once the HCLHD is moved out of its current building, located at 401 Broadway Street in San Marcos, the facility will still be used partially for the CHRISTUS Trinity Clinic and will also be used for elections.

“Right now, Broadway is a location for elections, but it’s such a small conference room. With the department leaving that building, they'll be able to modify it to make it a little bit more available for elections and to house the volunteer election workers or staff who may need to work at that office for the elections,” he said.

The department is moving to the new buildings based on their services, according to Gonzales. The Health Equity and Community Engagement Team has been working from the new building after its approval and purchase, as that team was working from home due to limited space. Staff members who do not see patients or clients have the option of moving in between April and August. Staff who see patients or clients will remain at the Broadway location until the Thermon location is operational in August.

“We have worked with the city of San Marcos Public Works Department’s Transit Manager, Amy Cogdill, for the new building to be on the same public transportation route as the Broadway location. The bus stop will be directly across the street from our new location,” Gonzales said. “We intend to celebrate our grand opening in conjunction with our annual back-to-school vaccine fair. This will be [on] Saturday, August 5, 2023. We plan to share more information as the date gets closer.”

For more information about the HCLHD and to keep up-to-date on the monthly newsletters, visit www.hayscountytx.com/departments/local-health-department.