WINNSBORO – Two clinics in Fairfield County are scheduled to close this summer. The John Spratt Primary Care Center in Ridgeway and the Lake Monticello Family Practice in Jenkinsville will close effective Friday, Aug. 22, according to Dr. Jaeson Fournier, president and CEO of the non-profit Cooperative Health Care, one of the larger health care systems in the state.
“Unfortunately, Cooperative Health has been experiencing some financial difficulties over the last 12 – 18 months,” Fournier said. “Part of this is about rightsizing our organization to ensure that we’re able to continue to provide services into the future.
“Cooperative Health is not at risk of closing,” he said, “but if we didn’t act at this point in time, things would have just continued to progress. So, we looked at our clinical assets around the four areas that we serve, including Newberry, Fairfield, Lexington, and Ridgeland, and made the very difficult decision to go ahead and close several of those sites.”
Fournier said, however, he expects at least some of those closings to be temporary.
“We own the Ridgeway property, so, when appropriate, we’ll revisit with our board of directors about reopening that clinic,” he said.
In the meantime, Fournier said patients from the two clinics will be referred to Cooperative Health’s Winnsboro Pediatrics & Family Practice clinic located at 1136 Kincaid Bridge Road, Suite A.
“When we looked at the clinics in Fairfield, it became very apparent that the majority of the patients were actually in Winnsboro,” Fournier said.
“Our goal is to support folks, albeit through our Winnsboro clinic or – though the foreseeable future – to wherever else they might want to go. If they want to go to a different provider, we’ll certainly help with that transition.”
While the non-profit receives federal funding, Fournier said the current financial bind the Cooperative finds itself in is not due to cuts to Medicaid and rural health care called for in the H.R. 1 (big beautiful bill).
“That may have implications for us moving forward,” he said, “but the financial strain that we’ve been under has been building for some time. It’s a result of the change in funding post-COVID.
“We had one-time dollars that were received through the pandemic, and those went away. But we had ongoing costs that needed to be contained,” he said.
Fournier said impacted employees have been notified, and that the cooperative is working with S.C. Department of Employment and Workforce in respect to transitioning staff members to other employment opportunities.
“Our goal is to continue to support folks – staff and patients – to make sure that it’s as seamless as possible, recognizing that this is very disruptive to our patients and staff members who have been adversely impacted,” Fournier said. “We take this very seriously. These decisions were not made lightly. It’s about making sure that competent health care remains viable and sustainable for years to come and delivers on our promises to the community.
“And then we’re looking at possibly being able to open some of these facilities back up,” he said. “That’s always a possibility.”
The phone number for the Winnsboro Pediatrics and Family Practice is 803-635-1052.
