All clinics offered by the Harrison-Clarksburg Health Department are canceled for next week while the agency moves into its new home, administrators said Friday.
Staffers spent Friday packing boxes in preparation for the move to the second floor of the Professional Building on South Third Street, said Randy Moodispaugh, administrator.
"What we're planning, since moving will take all next week, and will be very confusing, is to discontinue all of our clinics," he said Friday. "We hope to be back up and running the following Monday (April 24)."
However, home health and home inspection services won't be interrupted by the move.
On Monday, movers from Allied Van Lines will begin removing boxes, furniture, cabinets and equipment from the courthouse and hauling it nearly two blocks to the new location, Moodispaugh said.
"With all of that equipment going into such a tight space, I thought it would be a good idea to hire them to move us," he said.
Telephone service to the department will be disrupted during the move, too, Moodispaugh said. New phone service is tentatively scheduled to be operational at the new location by April 24.
The department's new telephone number will be 623-9345. The new fax number will be 623-9350.
Once the move is complete, department staffers will start setting up in the new location, Moodispaugh said.
The department is vacating its offices on the ground floor of the courthouse because the county commission needs the space to make room for a new division of the circuit court.
Voter registration and other offices now on the second floor will relocate to the ground floor where the department now is. County commission offices will relocate to the second floor, and the new judge will take the commission's space, including its courtroom, on the first floor.
All moving expenses will come from the health department's general budget, Moodispaugh said. The county commission recently agreed to allot an additional $25,000 to help the department cover costs.
Since the Board of Health decided on the Professional Building last month, workers have been busy renovating the site, he said. Work there has progressed quickly.
"They've been doing the essential work that they had to do," he said.
"It's going much better than I had even hoped for. I'm very impressed."
When the decision was made, the site was criticized by some department employees because of accessibility problems. But the building passed an Americans With Disabilities Act assessment performed by the county's ADA officer, and the decision stood.
