Receptionist Jo Wilson works in a section of the Waterfall Community Health Center on Wednesday. That section is being used to store furniture during the remodel of a suite that is the future home of women’s and family planning services. - World Photo by Jolene Guzman

The aroma of fresh paint is only a hint of the changes to come at the Waterfall Community Health Center.

The North Bend center, formerly known as the Waterfall Clinic, is just beginning an expansion in both service and space. Since being awarded federal funding this fall, Waterfall has become Coos County’s first federally qualified health center, Waterfall Chief Executive Officer Kathy Laird said.  That designation provides grant money to the center, but also requires Waterfall to offer more services to patients regardless of their ability to pay.

Laird, who has been part of the center since 1995, considers the expansion growing pains — but in the best possible sense.

“This will give us a boost up,” she said, adding that the center may have to do more fundraising to support the addition services. “More so now than ever before, we need community support.”

 Primary care, mental health care, family planning, women’s health, preventive care and dental health, are all part of what Laird describes as a “full menu of services” the center now offers or will soon.

More services mean more staff. Laird said two new nurse practitioners, one for primary care and another in women’s health, were hired recently. Laird expects that the center will soon employ a dental hygienist and a mental health professional.

With more resources and staff, Waterfall be able to extend its hours.

Starting Feb. 6, the center will offer primary care services until 8 p.m. on Wednesdays. The women’s health and family planning appointments have been open late on Wednesdays for more than a year.

“We’ve been very successful with the evenings,” Ingrid Tyson, a family nurse practitioner with the center, said Wednesday. “Most of our clients are working people.”

The smell of paint that permeates the building stems from the center’s preparing to move the women’s health and family planning clinic into a remodeled suite. Waterfall soon will have three new exam rooms and a separate entrance for the clinic’s patients.

“We are really blessed with this building and that we have a lot of space,” Tyson said of the center’s North Bend location.

The clinic offers exams and low-cost birth control to women who qualify and sexually-transmitted disease testing for both men and women. Last year, the center started a program for breast and cervical cancer screening for women age 40 to 64 who are Oregon residents and have no health care coverage. Since beginning in March, the center has screened 300 women. The tests found breast cancer in women who showed no symptoms.

“The bad news is that we found breast cancer,” Tyson said. “The good news is that we found it early.”

Once diagnosed, women who have used the screening program are fast-tracked into the Oregon Health Plan for as long as they are in treatment, Tyson said.

Laird hopes that the federal support eventually will allow the center to move its school-based health center to its own building. The clinic is now in the Harding Learning Center near Marshfield High School, where it serves students with limited access to health care.

Tyson and Laird also have another item on their wish list: to serve more people. Laird said the center had about 7,000 visits last year and expect as many as 10,000 this year.

“The need is so great we can’t even begin to meet it,” she said. “Our goal is to meet more of those needs.”

The Waterfall Community Health Center is located at 1890 Waite St. Suite, No. 1, in North Bend and is open from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.   on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Starting Feb. 6, the center will be open from 8:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Wednesdays only. Waterfall’s Marshfield school-based health center is open from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.

For more information or to schedule an appointment, those interested can call 756-6232