Lindsay Wellness Center

Welcome to the Lindsay Wellness Center!

The Wellness Center opened to the public on September 6, 2011.  

The Wellness Center was first proposed as a 64,000 square foot facility with a price tag of $15 million in December 2003. It was originally envisioned as a bicultural, bi-national facility that partnered with health officials in the Mexican state of Michoacan, the native region for about 10% of Lindsay’s residents, to provide culturally competent health care by sharing information between Michoacan and Lindsay. The idea seemed promising after a contingent of Lindsay leaders met with Michoacan officials over three days in May 2005. However, following recent elections, nearly all of the officials that Lindsay has partnered with were replaced as part of a governmental upheaval.

By 2007, the marvelous vision was still there, but the money and plans had to be more realistic. The project was paired down to 21,000 square feet with a price tag of $7 million. The facility would offer an Olympic-sized lap pool, a nutritional demonstration kitchen, fitness center, physical therapy center, etc. The lap pool turned into the Lindsay Aquatic Center, a $1.5 million facility that opened to the public on June 8, 2009. By January 2010, the Wellness Center was again reduced to a more manageable size, a 14,000 square foot facility with a price tag of just over $5 million. That facility opened to the public on Sept. 6, 2011 with the opening of its first tenant, PRO-PT physical therapy and rehabilitation specialists. Today, the Wellness Center is home to PRO-PT, Omni Healthcare, free health education courses, community events, and classes ranging from Creative Movement and swim classes for children to Chair Classes, YOGA, Zumba, and so much more.

Lindsay District Hospital

Having a hospital is part of the fabric of Lindsay’s history as well. Lindsay’s first hospital dates back to the Great Depression but the Lindsay Hospital District was formed in 1951 following the formation of the Association of California Healthcare Districts and the prior passage of the Local Hospital District Law in 1945. The law allowed rural communities to form special tax districts to assess property taxes and, in turn, fund the building of hospitals at a time when many in the Western United States had limited access to hospitals and transportation to hospitals in other cities. From the 1960s through the 1980s, the Lindsay Gazette archives refer to Lindsay as one of the top rural hospitals in the State. Over that time, the hospital grew from 10 beds with a staff of five doctors to 100 beds with a staff of 18 physicians.

Wollenman, past hospital board member, said decisions the board made when the hospital was open was very different than those of a district after the hospital had closed.

“The Board at that time was more involved with trying to raise money for certain things,” she said. “And the doctors’ needs heavily influenced the board’s decisions.”

After a string of mergers and buyouts by larger hospitals in the late 1980s and 1990s, the Lindsay Hospital closed in November 2000. Lindsay’s demise was part of larger trend in medicine where managed care and increasingly expensive technology created larger, regional hospitals and effectively cut rural hospitals out of the healthcare equation.

After the hospital closed, Wollenman and her fellow board members made the wise choice to continue the tax-funded hospital district without a functioning hospital.

“When the hospital closed it was a disaster,” she said. “If we didn’t keep the district going, all of that money would have been absorbed by the County and redistributed to other districts. We wanted to make sure that money stayed here and continued to help the people of Lindsay.”

The actual hospital building was raised in 2006 to make way for Wellness Center and adjacent Lindsay Aquatic Center that now sit at the corner of Sequoia Drive and Ono City Parkway. In what Wollenman considers the best decision she was part of during her tenure, the Hospital Board agreed in 2002 to fund operations at the Wellness Center for $233,721 per year.