Dr. Carla Fry, administrator and health officer for the Florida Department of Health in Monroe County, joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM to talk about outreach in the city.
Today is the opening of the Tuga Clinic at the College of the Florida Keys campus.
Dr. Fry said, “We’re going to be open Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and that’s going to be from 9am to 4pm and it’ll be by appointment or walk in. We prefer appointments. It’s a little easier to plan that way, but certainly walk ins are going to be welcome. On Tuesdays, we’ll have a nurse there all day, and then Wednesday and Thursday, we’ll have a provider on site as well, so we can do primary care and those types of things.”
This collaboration came out of the 2022 Stock Island Community Health survey where residents highlighted the need for affordable, accessible medical care on Stock Island.
Dr. Fry said, “We’re going to start out actually today and tomorrow, we’re going to be doing school health physicals. You can also do occupational health physicals. So for example, there are a lot of nursing students who go to the College of the Florida Keys, and all of them have to have a physical as they start the program so they will be eligible, as would anybody else who’s maybe starting a new job. Then, in addition to that, we can do some primary care. If anybody’s got their runny nose, sore throat, needs tested for flu. We will certainly do immunizations, and we have the whole range of immunizations, everything that we have available here at the main campus, which is the 1100 Simonton at Gato, we can do there. If it’s going to be something specialized, like travel, vaccine, again, an appointment would be good. We also do Narcan distribution and some smoking cessation resources. So quite a bit of services, basically trying to do as full service as we can. With a new location, it’s always a challenge at first, because it’s not busy quite yet at the beginning. The nice thing about it, there’s plenty of parking. It’s easy to get there and then you just have to kind of follow the road around to the right. There’s some signs that we have put up, so should be relatively easy to find. I want to make sure people realize it’s open to the public. It’s not just for students, staff and faculty there. It is indeed open to anyone who wants to go there. We targeted Stock Island because they didn’t have anything in the way of medical care out there, except for specialty care, but anybody could go. So if it’s more convenient to visit that location than our other three locations, then that’s perfectly fine.”
Vital Chek is a new initiative Florida Department of Health in Monroe County has launched.
Dr. Fry said, “We really wanted to make it convenient for people. For a long time here in the Florida Keys, we’ve really only had vital statistics in Key West, so it’s a long drive to have to come down here for a birth or death certificate. We wanted to make it a lot more convenient for our residents and also for people who have left. Many times somebody who maybe had a baby here in the 1970s is never coming back to Key West, but they still need to get a copy of that birth certificate. So this is an easy way to do it. It’s www.vitalchek.com or their customer service is 877-550-7330. And of those times that a person just needs to get birth, death, marriage, divorce certificates and does not want to come to Key West, this is the way to go.”
Keep in mind it’s vital chek – the spelling is a little different, so be careful.
School physicals are also coming up.
Dr. Fry said, “The best way to find out where to come and making sure the hours are going to jive, and all that is just to call the 305-293-7500 number. If you’d rather have the school health physical here, or even in our Marathon or Tavernier location, we just need to make sure we plan for that and have the right people in place. All of our other locations are still open and available for either walk in or appointment. Full services are available at all three locations in Key West and Marathon and in Tavernier. We wanted to make it convenient so there’s one phone number to call. You’ll get a person. And if you’re struggling with anything that is related to public health, it’s not just clinical services. We also have epidemiology, environmental, public health, all of those things, you can give us a call.”
For more information, click here: https://monroe.floridahealth.gov/