This story has been updated.
University Health opened a new $18 million health clinic on the East Side of San Antonio on Monday, the first of four openings to come with the Bexar County hospital system’s planned $1.7 billion expansion.
Located at 3860 I-10 East, University Health Wheatley offers walk-in, urgent care seven days a week. The clinic staffs primary care and medical specialists, has a full-service pharmacy, as well as the ability to provide X-rays, ultrasound and laboratory services.
Officials gathered at the Wheatley clinic on Saturday to celebrate the opening, which marks a significant step forward in expanding access to health care in the area.
Rheumatology and gastroenterology specialists will be present at the Wheatley clinic, in addition to six family medicine physicians. That may shift depending on patients’ needs, said University Health Director of Communications Elizabeth Allen.
The East Side of San Antonio is historically the heart of the Black community in the city and has long been underserved. The clinic is named after Phillis Wheatley, known as the first Black woman in the U.S. to publish a book of poems.
The new clinic will be followed by the opening of University Health Vida clinic, as well as two five-story hospitals on the Southwest and Northeast sides of San Antonio. The hospital system also recently purchased a shuttered CHRISTUS Santa Rosa Hospital in the South Texas Medical Center that could soon become “Babcock Specialty Hospital.”
Breaking generational cycles
“Access to care has been a challenge for people living on the East Side of our community,” said Dr. Margaret Kelley, a member of the Bexar County Hospital District Board of Managers, at the opening celebration. “The goal of this center is bigger than treating illness, it’s about prevention and breaking generational cycles of health problems, like diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure in our families.”
The Bexar County Commissioners Court allocated $30 million to University Health using American Rescue Plan Act funds to support the opening of new clinics. The Wheatley clinic cost $18 million and the Vida clinic cost about $42 million.
“We saw the health care gaps that needed to be addressed,” Bexar County Judge Peter Sakai said. “Everyone deserves the opportunity to live a healthy life. That is a basic right. This will break down the inequities of access to health care by building up the infrastructure of health care.”
The opening of the Vida clinic, located on the Southwest Side near Texas A&M University-San Antonio, will follow closely behind Wheatley.
Allen said University Health Vida will open in phases, seeing its first patient in mid-November and fully opening in January.
