A Springfield, Missouri-based health center is traveling to St. Louis this week to address what it calls a recent loss of access to care in the city.
Workers at Jordan Valley Health, which operates 10 mobile units throughout the region, will bring one to the Bayer YMCA near the intersection of Page and Union boulevards.
Patients will be able to receive primary and pediatric care from health providers from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Thursday.
The summer season and a delivery of two new mobile units created an opportunity to travel to St. Louis, said Jordan Valley President and CEO Matthew Stinson, a physician who will staff the unit Thursday.
"This is a perfect opportunity and time for us where we don't have our mobile units that are going out as often to schools," Stinson said. "We have the option of providing and putting a unit there on a regular, recurring basis."
The clinic's leaders are planning on sending the unit to St. Louis weekly, he said.
Jordan Valley Health is a federally qualified health center, which means it receives federal funding in exchange for treating people in medically underserved areas regardless of their insurance status or ability to pay.
The mobile unit will post up near CareSTL Health, another federally qualified health clinic that recently lost its federal funding and has been closed off and on throughout 2026.
CareSTL announced it was reopening this week after it closed for more than a month and furloughed its staff earlier this summer. According to its Facebook page, the clinic is also hiring workers to staff its clinic on Dr. Martin Luther King Drive.
CareSTL's executive director did not respond to requests for an interview.
Stinson said Jordan Valley and CareSTL had previously discussed working together, but the decision to come to St. Louis this summer was made without input from the St. Louis nonprofit.
"I had discussed with my board about [how] there's this challenge that one of the FQHCs in St. Louis is facing," he said. "The question that the board asked ... is if you are considering doing it prior to them closing, why aren't you still considering it?"
Jordan Valley officials said as for now, CareSTL's reopening is not affecting plans to operate the mobile clinic in St. Louis.
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