Central Lake still hoping for a new doctor

By: 
Linda Gallagher, Contributing Writer

Photo by Linda Gallagher

The Central Lake Family Health Center was closed last summer until a new medical provider can be found. 

 

CENTRAL LAKE – For most, if not all of its existence, the village of Central Lake has had a doctor to assist area residents with their medical needs.

That ended last summer when the East Jordan Family Health Center, which has owned the clinic since 2003, closed the Central Lake Family Health Center after the clinic's longtime staff physician Dr. Jeanne Haberer, D.O., resigned her residency at the clinic to move out of the area.

Almost six months later, the clinic remains shuttered, with its former patients forced to seek medical treatment at EJFHC's other locations in Bellaire or East Jordan, or from another provider. 

"Unfortunately, when Dr. Haberer resigned so that she could move out of the area, we were faced with the difficult decision to close our Central Lake office until another medical provider can be recruited to staff the office,” said EJFHC Executive Director Dan McKinnon, last week from his office in East Jordan.

"We are working with several firms to assist us with finding physicians to join our staff," McKinnon continued. "The shortage of primary care physicians is real."

Lifelong Central Lake resident Brian Patton, who is also a longtime member of the Central Lake Village Council, doesn't deny that, but said the issue is frustrating for him.

"My parents, like many of Central Lake's residents, are older and make frequent trips to seek medical care," Patton said Monday. "After the Central Lake clinic closed last summer, they were told they would have to travel all the way to East Jordan, which is a long way for people in their 80s who don't get out much at all anymore, especially in the winter."

Patton went on to point out that in the time since the Central Lake clinic shut its doors at least two new medical providers have joined EJFHC's staff, one of which is now practicing in Bellaire, with the other hanging her shingle in East Jordan.

Read the full story in our regular edition of The Review. To subscribe to the paper for just $34 a year, which includes access to our full online e-edition, please go to the subscription page on this website at: http://www.antrimreview.net/subscribe/

 

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