Saratoga Hospital staffing clinic at Luther Forest site

PHOTOGRAPHER: Lee Coleman

Saratoga Hospital has developed a working relationship with the company building the $4.6 billion GlobalFoundries computer chip fabrication plant in Luther Forest Technology campus.

The hospital provides nurses and doctors for a health clinic on the building site under a contract with M+W Group U.S. Inc., which designed and is building the huge manufacturing facility in the towns of Malta and Stillwater.

“They contracted with us to staff their on-site health clinic,” said Julie Demaree, director of Saratoga Hospital’s Malta Medical Arts center on Route 9 in Malta.

“We work with them to help keep them safe,” Demaree said.

Saratoga Hospital staffs the health and safety office 68 hours each week. The clinic is located in a large trailer at the site.

GlobalFoundries also uses Malta Medical Arts as a location where prospective employees go through a series of occupational health tests and screenings.

“We do have a relationship,” Demaree said. She added, however, that the details of the GlobalFoundries-Saratoga Hospital relationship are confidential.

Jeff Methven, Saratoga Hospital’s vice president for ambulatory services and human resources, said the work the hospital does for M+W US Inc. is focused on the health and well being of their many hundreds of workers at Luther Forest Technology campus.

The nurses staffing the clinic, as well as the doctors and physician’s assistants who visit the site on a weekly basis, perform a variety of services, including blood pressure checks, flu shots, assessing minor injuries, and working with the company’s safety team to prevent on-the-job injuries.

Saratoga Hospital, sometimes referred to as Saratoga Care with offices at the hospital in Saratoga Springs, has been staffing the construction site clinic since October.

Demaree said Saratoga Care has also moved some of its corporate and occupational health services from its Wilton Medical Arts building on Route 50 in Wilton to the Malta Medical Arts facility.

Occupational medicine and corporate health services offer companies a range of job-related medical services to meet the needs of their workers.

“We also help employers prevent accidents and work-related injuries, decreasing lost time and resulting in lower workers compensation and insurance costs,” says a Saratoga Hospital statement.

The Malta Medical Arts facility opened three years ago in leased space,

Methven said Saratoga Hospital would like to have a presence at the GlobalFoundries site on a permanent basis some day. “It’s a wonderful opportunity,” he said.

GlobalFoundries is expected to employ more than 1,400 workers when the fabrication plant becomes operational in 2012.