(Beaver Dam) Church Health Services in Beaver Dam has been providing medical resources for this in need since 1993, and they are ready to grow their impact heading into 2024.
When Dr. Mike Augustson realized a pattern of frequent doctor visits for those who were struggling financially, he partnered with Rev. Steve Polster to start a nonprofit organization that has been providing medical assistance to the Dodge County area for 30 years.
The nonprofit aids those who are uninsured or underinsured with dental, medical, and mental health services. This comes in the form of medication, counselling, and in-depth check-ins where doctors look to get to the core of an individual’s well-being issues.
“Looking at the whole person. What’s going on in their life? Not just what’s impacting them today, and why do they need to see a doctor, but overall,” explains Executive Director Thea O’Conner. “What’s impacting them? What’s keeping them from getting healthy? What are some supports that we could give them as medical providers that would let them be successful and heal and no longer be coming to the doctor all the time.”
While the organization has already impacted the lives of so many, O’Connor identified a lack of availability for those in need of one-on-one counselling sessions.
“We have been providing mental health services for a number of years, but we realized that with the configuration of our current building, we only had two confidential therapy spaces,” O’Conner said. “[We] could only see two patients an hour to give them mental health therapy, and I have many more providers than that.”
That’s where the idea for a building expansion came to fruition. Church Health Services has been remodeling what was once a storage space in a garage into an area that will house administrative offices. O’Connor says the mental health dedicated areas can then be moved to where those offices used to be.
The Beaver Dam nonprofit originally had just a pair of confidential therapy spaces. By the time this operation is complete in January of 2024, O’Conner said the therapy spaces will grow greater than threefold.
“There will be seven confidential therapy spaces, so that means we can see seven patients at a time,” she said. “That should eliminate the need to turn patients away because that is just never anything that we want to do.”
There will be an open house for those wanting to see the newly renovated building in January.
To keep a service like this on its feet, O’Connor notes that it is truly up to the community. She says that roughly 60% of the revenue they utilize to operate comes from donations.
There are paid, volunteer, and donating opportunities for those who want to be a part of Church Health Services and their mission. Click HERE to visit their website.
