By Dave Ranney
KHI News Service
WICHITA, June 11
Mother Mary Anne Clinic”s grand opening won”t be today after all.
“We”re shooting for June 24,” said Jim McFadden, who”s leading Via Christi Wichita Health Network”s effort to open a non-emergency care facility next door to the emergency room on its St. Joseph campus.
The opening, he said, was postponed after each of the three workers he”d hired to run the clinic unexpectedly left their positions
each for different reasons.
Then, he said, the clinic”s new lab equipment didn”t arrive on time and there were problems with the computers.
“Have you ever had one of those days where you”re going, “What else could go wrong?”” McFadden said. “That”s what it was like, but we”re back on track. We”ll be OK.
“The last thing we want to do is open before everybody is trained to do what they”ll need to do,” he said. “We won”t do that.”
Via Christi officials hope poor and uninsured patients who”ve grown accustomed to using the emergency room for routine care will instead choose the clinic.
The clinic and the emergency room are about 30 yards apart.
Plans call for the clinic being open from 4 p.m. to midnight, seven days a week.
The clinic is named for Mother Mary Anne McNamara, a Sisters of St. Joseph nun who served as the hospital”s executive director at for 22 years. She died in 1991.
-Dave Ranney is a staff writer for KHI News Service, which specializes in coverage of health issues facing Kansans. He can be reached at
dranney@khi.org
or at 785-233-5443, ext. 128.