Submitted
Salina Family Healthcare Center will receive a $10 million boost from the state as they embark on a capital campaign aimed at building a new family medical clinic on South Ohio Street.
Senator J.R. Claeys, Republican of Salina, secured the funds in the state budget to support the new $60 million facility.
Claeys also carried the veto override of additional ongoing state funding for the medical residency programs in Salina and Wichita and the veto override of the $2.2 Million medical scholarship program. Both were successful and will become law.
“Salina is a critical piece of the puzzle when it comes to keeping doctors and dentists in Kansas,” said Claeys. “This facility will train the doctors who primarily serve rural areas of our state."
The Smoky Hill Family Medicine Residency Program at Salina Family Healthcare Center will add capacity to train more doctors, pharmacists and dentists for rural Kansas. The current facility in the former YWCA on Prescott is constrained by space, which is causing medical students to look out of state for residency opportunities.
“The state has been focused on the medical school end of the problem for so long and we have been successful creating a new osteopathic medical school in Wichita, producing more medical students,” said Claeys. “Far too many of those students are leaving our state for residency programs, and that's where they end up staying for job opportunities. We need to add capacity in our residency programs to keep doctors here in Kansas.”
Over 80% of the graduates of the Smoky Hill Family Medicine Residency Program are practicing in rural Kansas. Almost all have stayed in the state.
Claeys serves as vice chairman of the powerful Senate Ways & Means budget writing committee.