Waverly City Council met in regular session on Tuesday to consider a measure that would allow Southern Ohio Medical Center to build an urgent care center in Waverly next to the YMCA. The area proposed for the center will need to be rezoned before the project can proceed. Council voted unanimously to allow SOMC to proceed.

“The Waverly facility will primarily be an urgent care and speciality center, with the center being open seven days a week,” said Ben Gill, SOMC vice president of support services. “With the speciality center, we intend to have speciality physicians from a variety of different fields rotate on a regular basis to see patients.”

Gill said SOMC has been serving the residents of Pike County for a number of years. “We have a lot of folks who are from there that are loyal to SOMC. This is another way for us to invest into that community. This way we can provide some services a little closer to home for them,” Gill said. “This is a significant investment and we are happy to do it. We feel we have a relationship with a number of people in that community and we intend to solidify that relationship and make that stronger.”

He said SOMC intends to be an active part of the Waverly and Pike County community.

Gill said this will be the fist location where SOMC will have an urgent care and a specialty center under one roof.

SOMC plans to put the project out to bid this summer, with an opening in the spring 2012.

Gill said SOMC expects 20 to 30 people to work at the Waverly Urgent Care and Speciality Center.