Senior center will have doctor five days a week

The Howard W. Cannon Senior Center in downtown Las Vegas will once again have a doctor available five days a week.

After a tumultuous year that included the ouster of longtime provider Community Health Centers, a new medical clinic is set to open Wednesday.

As for Community Health Centers, the organization is very much alive and planning to move to a new facility to serve low-income people and seniors if they choose to come, said the organization's community liaison, Larry Gamell.

Community Health Centers, which is funded by federal grants, had been operating the Cannon Center clinic for nearly 10 years.

Earlier this year the centers' then-chief executive officer, Ken Moore, announced that the doctor at the Cannon Center was not seeing enough patients to keep the clinic afloat. After several seniors protested, the center began providing a doctor two days a week.

In August, the Las Vegas Housing Authority, which runs the Cannon Center, agreed to stop automatically renewing Community Health Centers' lease and instead put the facility out to bid.

The bid was awarded to a newly formed corporation called Solutions created by a Mel Velasquez. He had been a subcontractor of Community Health Centers running a popular psychiatric program until it was cut to save money.

Initially, Solutions will provide "general medical services," five days a week, Velasquez said.

He said he hopes to expand services to include bringing back the psychiatric program and possibly hiring a part-time podiatrist and diabetes specialist.

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