Sanford World Clinics’ plan to open in Las Vegas business park advances

A major health care organization with global aspirations could be moving into a low-income Las Vegas neighborhood, but first it’s going to have to overcome criticism from the local medical community.

On Wednesday the City Council voted unanimously in favor of an exclusive negotiating agreement with Sanford World Clinics for the right to acquire land in the city’s Enterprise Park, a business park near Lake Mead and Martin Luther King boulevards.

The deal gives Sanford – a South Dakota-based nonprofit with 250 clinic locations, hospitals and long-term care facilities and plans for projects in Africa, Ireland, Mexico and Israel – six months to conduct a feasibility study for a pediatric clinic aimed at under-served residents in Southern Nevada.

If such a clinic is feasible, the Nevada Children’s Medical Center would raise $4 million to add to a $2.5 million contribution from Sanford. The city would sell the land at a price to be determined.

"We really want kids to feel safe, to feel secure, to be in a pleasant environment because we know it promotes their healing," Rochelle Sweetman, Sanford’s director of business development, told the council when describing the organization’s goals for clinics.

Proponents of the agreement, including Councilman Ricki Barlow, will need to overcome skeptics from Clark County government and within the medical community who were critical of the plan.

Commissioner Lawrence Weekly, who heads the University Medical Center Board of Trustees, said Sanford’s plan for eight pediatricians in a 13,000-square-foot clinic could compete with the public hospital two miles away.

"The competition here has a tendency of causing harm and causing harm to an existing facility that is already providing services," Weekly said.

Las Vegas Mayor Pro Tem and Councilman Stavros Anthony said he sees no problem with competition in the medical community.

"I think competition is good because competition causes everybody to raise the bar," Anthony said.

Sweetman said Sanford’s plan is to complement, not compete with, existing services. She said Sanford would use the ensuing six months to formulate a concept that won’t be redundant with what already is available in Las Vegas.

"We are not McDonald’s, and we don’t have a set idea," she said. "We are going to do what our communities say will meet the needs of that community."