JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Mayo Clinic is making a major investment in healthcare for an underserved area of Jacksonville.
Every Friday, Mayo Clinic sends residents, fellows, students and doctors to Sulzbacher’s Jacksonville clinic downtown to provide healthcare to those who need it.
“We see approximately 25,000 patient visits a year, over 7,000 patients,” said Cindy Funkhouser, President and CEO of Sulzbacher, which provides support to those experiencing homelessness. “When people think of Sulzbacher, they think of healthcare for the homeless, but we’re actually open to anybody in the community. Anybody can come to any of our clinics, insured, uninsured, Medicaid.”
Those healthcare services are set to expand.
Right now plans are underway to move Sulzbacher’s men’s campus, which is currently downtown, to a new 17-acre site near the intersection of I-95 and Golfair Boulevard. It will also include a new health center.
Funkhouser said it plans to break ground on 100 units of housing in 2024 and then comes Phase 2, where Mayo Clinic is involved. Earlier this week Mayor Clinic announced a $5 million donation to build out the clinics at the new campus.
“We think that this will really be an important access point for individuals who don’t otherwise have opportunities for care there. And hopefully it will also serve as a bit of a catalyst for other opportunities to deliver care even beyond what’s going to be built out by Sulzbacher,” said Dr. Kent Thielen, M.D., who is CEO of Mayo Clinic in Florida.
Mayo will also be partnering with Sulzbacher to provide specialists anyone in need can access at the new campus and Funkhouser said the area on the Northside is in need.
“It has the worst health outcomes in the entire city, it’s 32209, a health desert. Can you imagine having the number one health system in the entire nation, investing in our health desert, sending students, sending doctors there, so that folks that live in the northwest quadrant will have access to Mayo care?” Funkhouser said.
Funkhouser said it will be a game-changer.
Sulzbacher’s CEO said they’re hoping to break ground on the health center at the new campus in 2025.