A $7.9 million Chaves County Public Health office in Roswell is scheduled to officially open in the coming weeks.
Completion of the 12,086-square-foot health office at 1601 South Garden Ave. was marked with an Aug. 14 ribbon-cutting ceremony and open house attended by about 75 people, including current and retired public health personnel and local officials. Jimmy Masters, southeast regional health director for the New Mexico Department of Health, was presented with the keys to the facility.
Staff are in the process of transitioning from their current office at 200 East Chisum St. into the new facility, and should be fully moved in sometime in early September, Masters said. The new public health office will employ 31 people, according to an Aug. 11 press release from the New Mexico Department of Health advertising the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
The building will include a mobile health team, a pharmacy, two laboratories and freezers for vaccine storage.
Services provided at the health center will include the issuance of birth certificates, vaccinations, harm reduction, cancer screening, family planning and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, commonly known as WIC, Masters said.
Officials at the ribbon-cutting celebrated the building’s completion after a decade of lobbying, planning, land acquisition and construction by the county, all paid for with a combination of county, state and federal funds.
“This is a facility that is going to benefit our children and many other people in this community,” Chaves County Commissioner Richard Taylor said to the audience gathered under the building’s covered front entrance.
Masters also expressed satisfaction with the finished facility.
“When you see it in a picture it looks fantastic, but when you see it in real life it looks even better,” Masters said.
The ribbon cutting came less than two years after the start of groundbreaking on the project. A new public health office was on the county’s to-do list since at least 2015, but took on more importance amid efforts to boost healthcare infrastructure following the COVID-19 pandemic, Chaves County Manager Bill Williams said.
The current health office, housed in the Chisum Street building for about 50 years, is not only outdated, but does not meet federal code when it comes to accessibility for people with disabilities, Williams said. A lack of ramps and a main entrance door that is only 26 inches wide made accessibility difficult for people in wheelchairs.
Check out some more photos from the event.
