Lassen Indian Health Center will be breaking ground in the next few weeks on the new facility on Spring Ridge Drive. The project has been a decade in the making with planning and zoning red tape delaying the project. Yet Lona Ibanitoru the health centers CEO said they have worked hard to see the project through to address what a community needs assessment found the communities of Lassen County are in dire need of. The 5600 sq ft facility will offer a dialysis center, optometry, and physical therapy. These were identified as the highest priority needs of the county. The dialysis center alone will put an end to the long trips to Reno for patients that began sometimes as early as at 4 am and ended by 6pm. Lona said this is what has had to be done and some patients were outright refusing the treatment because of the arduous trips. The roughly 30 million dollar facility is expected to be completed within the next 3 to 4 years.
