ONTARIO — Avita Health System CEO, Jerry Morasko met with about 20 local business leaders Wednesday morning at Richland Mall for breakfast and conversation about the local health care facility’s future.
“I think it’s good to educate the community on what Avita is and what we are doing,” Morasko said.
Morasko talked about Avita’s plans to expand into Bellville soon. This was first announced at a village council meeting in June 2016, but Morasko furthered explained the reasoning at the breakfast.
“It will be a good location for us, but the mayor was bugging us,” he said, laughing.
Morasko noted the community needs a local option. When some land was donated for this purpose, Avita jumped on the opportunity.
“There’s nothing. That whole town, there’s nothing there,” Morasko said.
After the breakfast, vice president of corporate relations, Kim Winkle stated that she’s working on getting permits now.
Avita’s Bellville location will be a clinic with up to three doctors. Specialists will be at the clinic on a rotation basis.
“Our biggest thing is access to care,” Winkle said. “We don’t want patients to have to come to us, we want to come to them.”
She anticipates the clinic could be open in early 2018.
When addressing the business leaders, Morasko emphasized Avita’s teamwork with local government.
“We want to do it that way; we want to do it locally,” he said.
While the name “Avita” confuses some, according to Morasko, Avita is locally ran. The word “vita” means “life” in Italian and the “a” was added in front to make sure the Avita health system would be the first in alphabetically organized lists.
“We couldn’t be Galion hospital and move into Ontario as ‘Galion,’” he said.
The health system’s board of directors is made entirely of Richland or Crawford County residents.
The health system has Galion, Bucyrus and Ontario hospitals and several clinics scattered across the two counties. It employs about 1,700 people.
By keeping local leaders, Morasko says Avita can better keep services locally. Not all services are available through Avita, but it strives to maintain quality services.
“When we do something, we try to do it really well,” Morasko said.
The roundtable conversations have been held three or four times annually for about two years. They are held in Galion, Bucyrus and Ontario on rotation.
Avita Health System Director, Tammy Schott said the meetings are meant to be “small” and “intimate.” Typically, 10 to 15 people attend by invitation.
