Chiricahua Community Benson Health Center Taking Form

Chiricahua Community Benson Health Center Taking Form

Fall 2018 opening projected to serve valley residents

By Chris Dabovich

Published in the San Pedro Valley News-Sun January 31, 2018

 Much work has transpired since Chiricahua Community Health Center’s August groundbreaking announcing their added presence to the San Pedro Valley. Anyone traversing S. Ocotillo Avenue has witnessed the quick and ongoing work on the Benson Health Center which quickly is taking form. The facility is expected to be operational in the fall. The New Benson Health Center is expected to bring 30 jobs and eight physicians to provide the highest quality pediatric, adult, behavioral health, and dietetic care to the community, according to CCHC.

Recounting Chiricahua’s upward trajectory since its founding in 1996 in Elfrida, its main vision has been “…to provide high quality health care to all people regardless of ability to pay or insurance status within the community that they live and which includes a strategic plan to provide access for affordable health care to all communities in Cochise County. Chiricahua’s presence in the community has continued to expand, first through its mobile clinic which regularly sits in the Progressive Health Group’s parking lot at Dr. Michael Gray’s practice in Benson.

“This first-hand experience of providing care in Benson has served to reinforce the additional needs that the community has, and with the help of Vast Real Estate Solutions, we have decided to move forward in a big way — construct a new, state-of-the-art 19,000 square foot facility that can be expanded as needed… This is a very exciting project for us and we are anxious to build, to employ and to serve, Chiricahua officials said at the august groundbreaking. “Having the Chiricahua Community Health Center here in Benson is a tremendous advance towards providing much needed care to this community,” said Dr. Michael Gray, following the groundbreaking. “The federally funded community health centers system across the county is over 1,400 clinics, it is the only health care initiative supported by both sides of the aisle in Congress. It has been providing care to the undeserved uninsured for a very long time and as an entity, it emulates the concept that health care is a right and not a privilege.”

Since its founding, Chiricahua’s presence has grown to be the largest primary care organization in south eastern Arizona. Chiricahua Community Health Centers currently has clinics in Bisbee, Douglas, Elfrida, and Sierra Vista and four mobile medical and dental units that serve rural Cochise County.