Vans expand South Dakota’s delivery of health services

PIERRE, S.D. (KELO) — The South Dakota Department of Health is hitting the road to better reach people in remote rural and frontier areas.

The department showcased three of the new mobile-clinic vans on Wednesday.

Two will be stationed at Rapid City, two at Pierre and one at Sisseton.

South Dakota’s secretary of health, Melissa Magstadt, got her first look inside one of the $150,000 vehicles during the event.

A federal COVID-19 grant helped pay for them.

Beth Dokken is director for the state Division of Family and Community Health. She said 50 of the department’s staff received training to drive the vans from the South Dakota Highway Patrol.

The department will use those staff to take the specially-equipped vans to local communities and deliver services such as WIC, pregnancy care, immunizations, oral health, safe sleep, maternal screening, developmental screening and sexually transmitted infection testing.

More could be added in the months and years ahead, according to Magstadt.

“So our exhaustive list that we’ve put together now is not the list of the future, because the future now is connected to the possibility of a clinic that is on the road, meeting the needs of people wherever they are at,” she said.

Magstadt added, “I want to make sure first thousand days is the best thousand days for every South Dakotan.”

More about the Wellness on Wheels program can be found here.