Copyright © 2002 NLThomas
All Rights Reserved

PRYOR, OK - Cherokee Nation employees will visit a Housing Authority of the Cherokee Nation site in Pryor to perform routine medical procedures on community members who may not otherwise travel to the closest Cherokee Nation clinic in Salina for health care.

Employees of the Cherokee Nation Salina Clinic will be at an outreach clinic located inside the Literacy Center at Cherokee Heights once a month beginning in October. The clinic will be open to the public and is free of charge.

"We will provide immunizations, blood pressure checks, diabetes screenings, flu shots, and patient education", said Alana Smith, community health nurse supervisor for the Salina Clinic. "It’s so isolated there (at Cherokee Heights), we want to get out and prevent kids from being delinquent on immunizations", Alana Smith said.

According to Chuck Smith, Cherokee Nation Salina clinic director, the idea for an outreach clinic was born earlier this summer when an elderly man walked over ten miles from Pryor with a heart ailment to be treated at the Salina Clinic.

"If you don’t have transportation, you’re stuck there", Chuck Smith said. "It helps to maintain the regimen for regular health care. This is a community outreach to meet a more isolated area of the Cherokee Nation. The main goal for community health is to get out into the community."

The Literacy Center at Cherokee Heights and the Cherokee Nation Salina Clinic are planning a block party on November 1 to announce the grand opening of the community clinic. The block party will have a live band and cookout, complete with door prizes, to raise awareness of the new partnership between the Literacy Center at Cherokee Heights and the Cherokee Nation Salina Clinic.

"There are currently 200 children who live in the Cherokee Heights area and I want to see all 200, that’s my goal", Alana Smith said.

For more information on the community outreach clinic in Pryor, contact Alana Smith, phone: 918-434-8500.