Ogden health clinic geared to people without insurance moves, plans to expand offerings

OGDEN — An Ogden health clinic geared to the uninsured and underinsured has moved to a much larger facility as it prepares to bolster the number of people it can serve.

The new Seager Memorial Clinic site, inaugurated on Wednesday, is nearly 10 times as big as the prior space in the basement of the Ogden Rescue Mission. The move, said Jerika Mays, the clinic’s executive director, is “going to allow us to expand our impact.”

She said the clinic, which has served homeless people from the Ogden Rescue Mission, a homeless shelter, and others in need, plans to expand its hours of operation with the move and launch mental health counseling. The clinic, created in 1988, provides free medical, dental and vision care as well as pharmacy services, and it has averaged 2,700 visits a year, mostly from uninsured people.

“It’s just allowing us to expand and grow and serve our patients better,” Mays said. The clinic — moving from a 750-square-foot space to a 7,000-square-foot building — relies on volunteer help from medical professionals, and those involved plan to recruit more physicians, nurses, pharmacists and others to help as it bolsters its offerings.

Mays and others involved with the clinic held a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Wednesday to mark the launch of operations at the new location at 539 E. 24th St. in Ogden. The structure was originally part of the old Weber State College complex and later served as a family history library for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Stephen Seager, son of the clinic’s founder, Floyd Seager, a Weber County physician, spoke at Wednesday’s ceremony, thanking those involved. Floyd Seager was inspired to launch the clinic after a chance encounter with a homeless man who needed medical help but had nowhere to turn.

“Because of all of you, the suffering of countless people has been relieved. Because of this clinic and because of all of you, the lives, scores of lives, have been saved,” said Stephen Seager, also a physician.

The clinic serves all-comers, but the bulk of its clientele has come from Weber and Davis counties. Renovating the new clinic structure cost $3 million, with $750,000 coming from a 2023 appropriation from Utah lawmakers and more coming from donations from a long list of organizations and people. Ogden Rescue Mission plans to expand into the old space that the Seager clinic is vacating.

In related news, Family Promise of Ogden, which assists the homeless, inaugurated its new facility at 324 E. 1100 North in Harrisville on Tuesday. The organization helps homeless families with case management and helps secure temporary housing for them in cooperation with partner organizations that provide space.

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