One of North County's biggest community health providers has launched a major expansion. The Vista Community Clinic was one of 85 health centers in the nation to get a federal grant to increase capacity.
Vista Community Clinic opened in 1972 in the basement of an animal shelter. Today, it has five clinics in Vista and Oceanside.
The federal grant will pay for a new building that will expand services for prenatal care, pediatrics and family medicine.
Clinic CEO Barbara Mannino said in the last few years, they've seen a big influx of new patients.
"We see more and more people who've lost their jobs," Mannino said, "or for whom their health care insurance premiums are now out of sight, so they've dropped them, and we need to add more space and have the capacity to serve them."
Maninno says her clinics now treat 56,000 people a year. She says the expansion will add capacity for more than 12,000 new patients.
The $21 million project is expected to be completed late next year.
