Stephanie Shockley is a single-parent mother of three boys who has been unemployed since August 2009 after the mortgage company she was working for in Cincinnati suddenly closed.
Shockley said she’s been bringing her sons to the Franklin clinic on Conover Drive for the past two years and said closing the clinic and moving it to the main office in Lebanon is “a huge inconvenience.”
“This location is perfect for the area,” Shockley said. “It’s convenient and accessible. I think it’s more of an inconvenience, especially with this economy to drive 30 minutes (to Lebanon) when this is a perfect location.”
Shockley said her sons, ages 13, 9 and 7 months, are uninsured and the clinic enables her to get health care for her children.
Debra Fick of Springboro, a stay-at-home mother of two girls, agreed with Shockley about the inconvenience of having to drive to the Lebanon office.
“I don’t think it’s fair for them to close it,” she said.
Fick said she has been taking her daughters, ages 9 and 8 months, to the Franklin clinic for health care because they are also uninsured.
The Franklin clinic is open from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. A doctor is there on Tuesdays and Thursdays and sees about 25 people a day. Another 12 to 20 people are seen in the Women, Infants and Children clinic, according to staff members.
Stansbury said the proposed closing of the Franklin clinic is something that the department has been researching for several months. He said the move would allow the department to see more clients at the main office in Lebanon and increase efficiency with the scheduling of doctors staffing the Lebanon clinic.
The clinic has about five full-time employees and two part-time employees who work in the WIC clinic. He said some employees work part of the week in Franklin and in Lebanon.
Stansbury said the federally-funded WIC clinic averages about 2,000 patient visits a year and the general clinic average about the same number of patient visits annually. He said the department has been talking to patients for the past three to four months.
“Some had concerns,” Stansbury said. “But the vast majority said it would not impact them to come to Lebanon.”
Stansbury also said the Franklin area has seen hospitals with a stronger presence there in the past five to 10 years and residents don’t have to rely as much on the health department as they did in the past.
Stansbury said there is a possibility to have a clinic twice a month for WIC clients if the Franklin clinic is closed.
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