With the January closure of the Check-Ups clinic in Wal-Mart andthe recent suspension of weekend operations by King’s DaughtersMedical Center’s Quick Care Clinic, only one provider of primarymedical care remains open on Saturdays in Brookhaven.

Doctors Urgent Care, a small clinic on Highway 51, is openMonday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. It is operated bySouthwest Mississippi Regional Medical Center in McComb.

Clinic manager Teresa Davis said the clinic offers all theservices of a regular doctor’s office and sees between 40 and 60patients daily, including Saturday. That number is expected togrow, however, as the Quick Care Clinic implements its weekday-onlyschedule.

“We’re expecting it to get busier,” Davis said. “We’re probablygoing to take in a lot of Quick Care’s fallout.”

Davis said Doctors Urgent Care will meet the potential patientincrease with only one doctor on staff for Saturday, but the clinicis growing.

Next week, the clinic will open a lab, and a week after that, anX-ray room. A nurse practitioner will be added to the staff inFebruary, and the clinic will add more personnel as necessary.

“The busier we are, the more staff we’ll get,” Davis said. “Asour volume of patients builds, the more employees we can hire.Right now, we will accommodate as many patients as we can. We’rehoping to help everybody – that’s what we do.”

Calls seeking information on the decision to close the Check-Upsclinic in Wal-Mart were not immediately returned Friday. The clinichad been open about a year.

Another option for Saturday health care – and the only optionfor Sundays – is the KDMC emergency room.

Emergency room usage will be monitored over the coming weeks,said KDMC spokeswoman JoAnna Sproles. If the number of patientsvisiting the ER grows so much that it affects timely treatment,KDMC may consider reopening Quick Care on the weekends.

“This will be our first weekend for the clinic to be closed,”Sproles said after consulting with KDMC Chief Executive OfficerAlvin Hoover, Friday. “It’s really something we’re going to have toevaluate as we go along.”