Pickett Begins Health Department Expansion

Construction began this week on expanding Pickett County’s Health Department.

County Executive Stephen Bilbrey said the expansion comes after receiving $467,000 in grant money from the state. Bilbrey said the expansion consists of remodeling the pharmacy and also building an eleven-hundred-square-foot community room.

“Pickett County will be able to use it as an emergency operations center if we ever need to,” Bilbrey said. “Hopefully we will never need that but it will be set up to where the community can use it for meetings or whatever so we are excited about the project.”

Bilbrey said he expects the expansion to be complete by this upcoming spring. Bilbrey said the construction should not affect the day-to-day operations of the health department.

“I’m not going to say there won’t be any impact cause as you know there could possibly be something,” Bilbrey said. “But I think it will be minimal as far as impact goes of them being able to see patients.”

Bilbrey said the current Health Department is roughly 20 years old. Bilbrey said the pharmacy is small and that remodeling it will double its size. Bilbrey said he believes the community room is the highlight of the expansion.

“It’s going to be a positive thing for our county,” Bilbrey said. “Pickett is the smallest county and we just don’t have a lot of places to meet or gather.”

Bilbrey said he hopes the expansion will allow the community to take advantage of what the health department offers.