Athens Neighborhood Health Center completes expansion of office

Marcus Garner walked into a freshly-painted room lined with cardboard boxes of chairs that need to be unpackaged and stationed.

Garner, the CEO for the Athens Neighborhood Health Center on McKinley Drive in east Athens, is overseeing the final touches to an expansion of the medical facility that has seen it nearly double in size to almost 10,000 square feet.

People were already seated in the waiting room for medical services as the center is conducting what he recently called a soft opening before it goes full swing in May.

The center is one of 35 federally-funded medical centers in Georgia and one of 1,400 nationwide. The center served about 7,700 patients in 2022.

The expansion includes nine more examination rooms, and Garner said he is excited about the new dental offices and an office space for a licensed clinical social worker. The center also has a larger pharmacy to assist those with limited funds.

But he was especially proud that two people who have been with the center since its early days are still within its walls.

Dr. Gail Hurley has remained a clinical physician here for 37 years and office manager Carol Stephens for nearly the same number of years.

“My goodness, nowadays it’s hard to keep people for 37 days,” Garner said with a smile.

Hurley, who retired two years ago, remains on staff on a part-time basis. She is a native Athenian, who was born in the Susan Medical Center on West Hancock Avenue. She graduated Athens High School and the Medical College of Georgia.

“I’ve always worked in primary care,” Hurley said, explaining that after her medical degree, she went to work in Athens in a position with the National Health Service to fulfill an obligation tied to the finances of her education.

But she never left the Classic City.

“Athens is my home and I decided to stay,” she said.

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The expansion, she said, is wonderful.

“I wanted to stay until they got it done. It took longer than I anticipated,” she said with a chuckle.

Her career with the center mirrors that of Stephens, who grew up in Tignall and graduated from Athens Technical College with a degree in medical office technology. During those school years she commuted daily from Tignall.

“In the last quarter, they wanted you to intern,” she said about her degree.

Stephens first interned in the Athens pediatric office of Dr. Nancy Hendrix, then like Dr. Hurley, she joined the Neighborhood Health Center in its early days when it was in a small space off Lumpkin Street near the downtown U.S. Post Office.

They both then moved with the center to an office on College Avenue, before moving to McKinley Drive in a modular home. Now the new center is equipped with new modern treatment rooms for patients seeing both physicians. The center now has dental care and a mental health expert. The center is also on a bus route served by Athens-Clarke County.

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Although Stephens worked part-time early on, she began a job fulltime in 1987. Today, she is the site manager overseeing office staff and the facility.

Stephens, who resides in Winterville, said news of the expansion in 2019, was exciting and she likes the results.

Hurley said her job at the center gave her a chance to give back to her community.

“We’re just very proud and pleased with the way things are going, especially with the new expansion,” she said. “In general, I see a large amount of senior patients. We have grown old together.”

This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Athens Neighborhood Health Center has now doubled in size